Guilt by Silence

by Taylor Smith

  He went to rise but slipped on the loose trash underfoot and fell against the corner of the Dumpster, the briefcase flying out of his hands. “I’ll just climb out of here and get on with it, okay?”

  “No, Rollie, you’ve screwed up for the last time.”

  Burton’s mismatched eyes grew wide. “Dieter, please! Don’t!”

  The plea was lost in the sharp hiss of compressed gas escaping from the silencer, followed by a dull clang as the bullet passed through his brain and lodged in the steel walls of the oversize box that had become his coffin. One green eye and one ice blue stared blindly at the huge hand that reached in and lifted out the briefcase. The Toyota was still idling when the rent-a-cop security patrol pulled around the corner again twenty minutes later.

  Mariah had taken David home to be buried in the Tardiff family plot in Dover, New Hampshire. Dozens of Tardiff sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins showed up at St. Charles Catholic Church, where one Mass a week was still said in French for the benefit of a few old parishioners who took comfort in the language of their childhood—immigrants who had come from Quebec to New England in waves over the past hundred years, seeking work in the region’s textile mills. The mills were mostly gone now, and the language would be, too, when the last of the ancient ones died off. Only the names in the telephone book—the Leducs and the Cléments and the Tardiffs and others—would be left to remind generations to come of their heritage.

  Mariah moved through the wake and the funeral as if sailing through a North Atlantic fog, greeting people and receiving expressions of sympathy, but experiencing it all through a dense filter. She was grateful, though, for the cushion of support that the big family provided for Lindsay, with its aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens, not to mention the all-enveloping love of David’s mother and father.

  Watching David’s mother cluck over Lindsay, Mariah smiled. She had never known her own grandparents. Her father had been an only child, his parents divorced and long dead. Her mother had been estranged from her family for years, cut off after running away to California at eighteen with the irresponsible beatnik, Ben Bolt. The Illinois banker and his wife had never forgiven their daughter, nor she them for their continuing coldness even when they knew she was struggling alone with two young daughters. Mariah had called them when her mother was dying, hoping for a reconciliation at the end. The timid woman’s voice that had answered the telephone had been replaced quickly by the bluster of her husband, who had taken the news as coolly as if she were a defaulting client seeking to fend off a foreclosure. Mariah had never been tempted to seek them out again.

  Standing in the bitter cold at the cemetery, her arms around Lindsay and her in-laws’ arms around both of them, Mariah wondered what David’s family would have made of his last actions in Vienna. Like all large families, they had their share of eccentric characters and their little peccadilloes. But there was nothing in the simple, family-centered traditions of these good people to prepare them for the mind-boggling personal and professional lapse that David had suffered at the hands of Katarina Müller.

  Mariah stared at the casket suspended over the open grave, barely hearing the drone of the final rites being pronounced by the priest, her wet cheeks turning to ice in the cold wind. This isn’t over, David, she promised. I know who you were and what you were. And I know that no matter what you did in Vienna, you were victimized and frightened. Stephen Tucker was right—you were a good man and you didn’t deserve this. I’m going to get to the bottom of it, I swear. So rest easy now.

  Most of the people from the cemetery came by David’s parents’ house afterward. Frank Tucker and Pat Bonelli stopped by briefly before heading back to Logan Airport and their late-afternoon flight to Washington.

  “Carol wanted to come so much,” Pat told Mariah over coffee, “but she couldn’t leave the baby with this awful croup he’s picked up. And Stephen was going to come, too, but then he got cold feet at the last minute—you know how he is with strangers,” she added apologetically.

  Mariah shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I know how he felt about David. Poor Stevie. I guess David was one of the few people he ever felt really comfortable with. He was broken up after the accident. And Carol’s been nothing but supportive ever since we got back from Vienna. So have you two,” she added, looking up as Tucker came over with Pat’s coat. “I don’t know what Lindsay and I would have done without you.”

  “How long are you going to stay in New Hampshire, Mariah?” Tucker asked.

  “Through Christmas, I guess, if that’s all right with you and the office. I think Lindsay needs to be with David’s family right now. It’s not going to be an easy holiday season, but she’s got a lot of support here.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.”

  Mariah knew he had more in mind than just Lindsay’s needs, but she also knew from his opaque expression that he wasn’t about to discuss it.

  “Hello, Paul,” Pat said, looking up at Chaney, who had drifted over from a conversation with a group of Tardiff cousins. “Nice to see you again, although I wish it could have been under happier circumstances.”

  Chaney nodded and smiled briefly, then extended his hand to Tucker. “You two are heading back now?”

  “That’s right. Are you?”

  Chaney shook his head. “Not exactly. My son lives in Connecticut. I’m going to run down to see him tomorrow.”

  “That’s nice,” Pat said. “Are you spending Christmas with him?”

  “I’m afraid his mother’s not prepared to be that generous,” he said. “I’m going to spend the holidays with my parents. They’re retired out in Phoenix.”

  “Well, you have a good Christmas, anyway,” Pat said warmly. “Mariah, I’ll call you in a couple of days to see how you and Lins are doing, okay?”

  Mariah hugged her. “Sure. And thanks for coming up, Patty. You, too, Frank.”

  “Just take it easy, Mariah,” Tucker said. “The office will survive and the only important thing is for you and Lindsay to relax. Forget about everything else for a while.”

  Mariah nodded slowly.

  She had set the alarm on her watch for six-thirty, but when it went off the next morning and Mariah rolled out of bed, she noticed that the house was already full of warm cooking smells. She pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and went down to the kitchen, where David’s mother was just pulling bread out of the oven. The older woman glanced up, startled, as Mariah approached.

  “What are you doing up so early?” Mrs. Tardiff scolded. “You should sleep in. Poor thing, you looked exhausted yesterday.”

  Mariah gave her a hug. “Me? What about you? How long have you been up, for goodness’ sake?” She sniffed at the fragrant loaves.

  “Oh, I can never sleep in the morning, you know that. I’d just as soon get up and get busy.”

  “Nothing worse than just lying there in bed, remembering, is there?” Mariah said softly.

  David’s mother put the loaves on a rack to cool and slipped two more into the oven. Then she straightened and wiped her hands on her apron, gazing out the window. “I used to bake six loaves, three times a week, when the children were at home. I could have given them store-bought, of course, but they liked homemade better—especially David. He was such a little devil. If I didn’t keep an eye on him, he’d polish off a whole loaf all by himself as soon as it cooled.”

  Mariah smiled. “He didn’t change. I never knew how a small guy like that could eat so much and not gain an ounce.”

  “It was all that energy he had. Always on the go, into something.” David’s mother’s eyes were bright. She sniffed and pulled out a tissue from her apron pocket, leaning into the arm that Mariah put around her shoulder. “I have—had—six children,” she said quietly, “and I love them all. But in my secret heart, David was always special. He was born premature, you know, almost didn’t make it—such a scrawny little thing. They said he’d always be sickly, maybe a bit slow-witted, too. But he showed the
m. He was like a little terrier dog—such a scrapper. He’d go after what he wanted and not rest till he had it. And heaven help anyone who tried to take anything of his away from him.”

  Mariah nodded as the two of them stood watching the bare trees outside the window swaying in the gray, early-morning light. They turned at the sound of footsteps in the doorway behind them.

  “Everybody up already?” David’s father asked. Watching his warm brown eyes, Mariah was struck once more by how much he resembled David—or vice versa, rather. The older man’s hair was pure white now, the dark curls of his youth gone, but Mariah knew that this was what David would have come to look like if they had been allowed to grow old together.

  She smiled at his kind face. “All except Lindsay,” she said. “I wouldn’t expect to see her up much before ten. Suzanne and her kids are coming by to pick her up at noon.” David’s sister had promised to drive Lindsay and her cousins to the mall that afternoon.

  “Well, you two sit down and I’ll get you some breakfast,” Mrs. Tardiff said, beginning to bustle again.

  “Not for me, thanks,” Mariah said. “I’m going to go for a drive, if that’s all right with you. I feel restless—I think a little air might help.”

  “Of course it’s all right, Mariah,” David’s father said. “Do you want some company? I’ll come with you.”

  “No, thanks. I need to be on my own for a little, do some thinking. I’m fine, really,” she added, noticing the worried look on both their faces. “I just need to blow off excess energy. I might go for a walk down by the ocean.”

  “Have something to eat first,” Mrs. Tardiff said. “It won’t take a minute.”

  “No, thanks, really. I’m not hungry right now. I’ll have something when I get back. I won’t be too long, I promise.”

  Backing her rented car out of the driveway a few minutes later, Mariah noticed the gray Ford parked down the street a little way. As she headed off, she glanced in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, the Ford was pulling out. Keeping her speed down, she debated her options. Then she headed for Silver Street and the Spaulding Turnpike on-ramp.

  David’s hometown was in that little neck of New Hampshire that abuts on the Atlantic Ocean—eighteen narrow miles of coastline wedged between Maine and Massachusetts. Ever since they were married, she and David—and then Lindsay—had come up for a week or two every summer to spend time with the Tardiff multitudes at the old, rambling cottage they maintained in York Beach, Maine, just across the state line from New Hampshire. David’s parents would move in for the summer, riding herd on the sons and daughters and in-laws and grandchildren who would drift in and out of the cottage, camping out on beds and sofas and, when those ran out, on the floor. It had taken Mariah a couple of seasons before she finally figured out which kids went with which parents. Somehow, amidst all the happy confusion, it didn’t seem to matter much.

  She smiled at the memory as she approached the turnpike toll plaza, slowing and glancing in the rearview mirror. The early-morning traffic was heavy, but she spotted the gray Ford, part of Neville’s surveillance team, a couple of cars back. As the road widened to double the number of lanes at the toll plaza, the Ford veered off to the far-right wicket. Textbook perfect, Mariah thought, smiling grimly. He knew that she had no choice but to go through the toll plaza, so he could allow himself to get a little ahead of her now, diverting suspicion, and pick her up again farther down the road.

  But Mariah had gotten to know this part of the country well enough over the past fourteen years to believe that she could shake him here. She joined the longer line of traffic at one of the manned booths for those without exact change. As she neared the wicket, she watched the driver of the Ford drop a quarter in the basket of his lane and pull through the plaza. He headed off at a sedate but respectable speed.

  Mariah rolled down her window as she edged forward, smiling at the man in the booth.

  “’Mornin’,” he said cheerfully. “Twenty-five cents, ma’am.”

  She reached for her wallet. “Am I going the right way for Rochester? I’m not from this area and I get so turned around,” she added sheepishly.

  “No, ma’am—you’re going to Maine here. You wanna go west.”

  “Oh, no! And I’m running late,” Mariah said, checking her watch and letting a frantic note creep into her voice. “I’ve got an eight o’clock appointment. Can you tell me how to get back in the right direction?”

  The man in the tollbooth looked at the line growing behind her. “Tell you what,” he said, leaning out the door of his booth, “there’s an emergency-vehicle turnaround here on the other side of the toll plaza. You turn in there and you can head back the other way. Just be careful pulling out into the traffic.”

  “Oh, thank you! You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Ayuh,” the man said, his Yankee drawl pronounced. “Just drive safe now.”

  Mariah grinned as she slipped around the toll plaza and headed in the westbound direction. She took the next exit off the turnpike and doubled back to the eastbound on-ramp, pulling over to the side of the road to wait. It took ten minutes but, sure enough, the gray Ford sped by, heading west. She pulled onto the turnpike once more, being careful the second time she went through the toll plaza to pick one of the exact-change lanes, avoiding the nice man in the booth.

  Paul Chaney was waiting for her when she pulled up to the little coffee shop in York Beach.

  “Hi,” she said, stepping out of the car and looking him over. “You replaced your jacket, I see. You should let me reimburse you for it.”

  He shook his head. “It was time for a change, anyway. I’d had that old one for years.”

  “Well, I can see how this is a whole new image,” she said ironically. The new leather bomber was virtually identical to the slashed one the police had taken. “Did you have any trouble finding this place?”

  “No, but I had some company to shake first.”

  “Me, too. Lost him at the toll plaza.”

  “Ran a red light in Portsmouth and shook mine. Any idea who they are?”

  “Baby-sitters, but I’m not in a mood to be baby-sat right now.”

  “Want some coffee?”

  Mariah nodded and followed him inside. After they had found an empty booth and the waitress had taken their order, she glanced at his hand. “How are the cuts?”

  “Healing nicely. I’ll get the stitches taken out in Phoenix. How about your wrist?”

  She clenched her fist lightly and pivoted the wrist, which she had left unwrapped. “Coming along. It’s getting mobile again.” She scanned the coffee shop and then leaned toward him. “I had a phone call from Sergeant Albrecht after you left last night. They found Burton.”

  “Great. And? Did he say who hired him to go after you?”

  She sat back abruptly as the waitress arrived with their coffee. When the woman left, Mariah stirred milk into her cup, then sipped thoughtfully. Finally, she looked up at Chaney again. “He wasn’t in a position to say much,” she said. “He was dead.”

  “What?”

  “Shot through the head. He was in a Dumpster behind the Tyson’s Corner Mall.”

  Chaney whistled softly. “Sounds like an execution.”

  “That’s what Albrecht thought, too. Burton was already inside the Dumpster when he was shot—the bullet was lodged in the side of it. The police figure he was lured there, maybe for a payoff, which would explain why he would have climbed into the thing. His car was still running when they found him. Whoever shot him just picked him off like a fish in a barrel.”

  “This doesn’t look good, Mariah.”

  “I agree. So does Sergeant Albrecht. He had more questions about my line of work, and about that lock of David’s hair that they found in my kitchen trash. He said the pathologist noticed that a clump of hair had been whacked off the back of his head. Didn’t think much of my alleged barbering skills, it seems.”

  “Why don’t you come clean with him, Mariah? It can’t hurt Lindsay n
ow. Burton’s never going to trial.”

  “Because the police aren’t going to be able to get to the bottom of this,” she said. She reached into the tote bag she was carrying and pulled out the back issues of Newsweek and the Washington Post that Chaney had left with her the previous day. “I read these and I think you’re right—there could be a link to Vienna. I missed that article on the accident in New Mexico in the Post last week, with everything that was going on.”

  “Well, they really buried it,” Chaney said. “Two paragraphs on page thirty-two. But I guess the real news is that it got reported at all. I’ll bet the feds had a major campaign on to keep it under wraps.”

  “I haven’t looked at a newspaper in days. Has there been any follow-up?”

  “Nope. Incredible, isn’t it? Five nuclear weapons experts—two Americans and three Russians—get blown to kingdom come in the New Mexico desert and nobody bats an eyelash.”

  “I knew Kingman.”

  “The deputy director of the Los Alamos lab?”

  Mariah nodded. “David worked for him. When I was living with him in Los Alamos, we often got together with Kingman and his wife. She’s a medical doctor. I heard they got divorced, but she’s still there, as far as I know.”

  “Do you know anything about the Russians?”

  “Sokolov, Borodin and Guskov. Of the three, Sokolov was the star. Their best physicist. The other two were lesser lights. Borodin was a nuclear engineer involved in their testing program at Semipalatinsk. Guskov I don’t know much about—also an engineer, though.”

  “The other American, Bowker, was an engineer, too,” Chaney mused aloud. “What did you tell me that night when I came to your house and said I thought someone had tried to recruit David? That you’d want mostly engineers and technicians for an illicit weapons program?”

  “If I recall correctly,” Mariah said, “these guys had something else in common. They were all single—or widowed or divorced. No families.”