High Crimes

“Sure they did. They interrogated me at length, and I told them the truth. Obviously I didn’t do a statement for them.”

“And you didn’t report this to anyone? The truth, I mean?”

“Report to who? You don’t know the military. You keep your mouth shut and your head down and hope for the best.”

“But some of the guys in the unit must have seen you on the other side of the village. Some of them must know you weren’t there.”

“You’re not going to get anyone to testify to that. Either they took part in the massacre, or they’re part of the cover-up. They probably all have deals, immunity, whatever. You can find that out in discovery, can’t you?”

“They’re required to tell me. You didn’t have any friends in the unit? Any guys who might have refused to deal, but agreed to keep silent? Who might be willing to help you out now?”

“I liked maybe three guys in the unit. One or two of them I’d call friends. You know I don’t make close friends easily. Anyway, how do I know they didn’t fire at the villagers.”

“Tom,” she began. “Ron.”

“You can call me Ron, if you want,” Tom said softly. “If you’d feel more comfortable.”

“I know you as Tom. But that’s made up, isn’t it?”

“It’s the name I chose, not the one my parents gave me. I became Tom with you. I sort of like being Tom.”

“Tom, why should I believe you? Really. You’ve lied to me for six years, as long as I’ve known you. Really.”

“I lied about my past. To protect you from the kind of crazies who don’t fuck around. Who if they heard the slightest whisper that I was alive and living in Boston would have tracked me down and killed me and everyone around me. I should never have fallen in love with you, Claire. I should never have ruined your perfect life, me, with my horrible background—”

“You didn’t ruin my life.” Tears misted her eyes. She exhaled slowly.

“Claire, I’ve been thinking a lot about who might know the truth. About what really happened. There is a guy.” He bit his lower lip. “Someone who knows about what really happened. He’ll have the proof. He knows the Pentagon’s trying to cover this up. I’ll bet he can turn up the documents for you.”

“Who?”

He took her pencil and scribbled a note on one of her legal pads. He whispered: “Keep this name locked up. Destroy this paper. I mean, flush it down the toilet.”

She glanced at it. Her eyebrows shot up.

“Tom,” she said, “I have to ask you something else.” She told him about the grisly incident with the neighbor’s dog and the mailbox back in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Tom closed his eyes, shook his head slowly. “Come on. I did live off-base, they got the right address, but I bet, if you try to track this supposed ‘neighbor’ down, you’ll find he doesn’t exist.” His eyes were moist. “Claire, we need to talk.”

“Okay,” she said guardedly.

“Listen to me. You are my rock right now. When Jay took off, I was there for you because I valued you as a friend. I’ve tried to be a rock for you, because I love you. But now I need you. I can’t tell you how hurtful it is that the person I love most in all the world doubts me.”

“Tom—”

“Let me finish. I’m utterly alone here. Totally alone. And if it wasn’t for you, your faith in me, I don’t think I’d make it. I really wouldn’t.”

“What does that mean?” she asked softly.

“Just that I don’t think I’d live through it if I thought you didn’t believe in me. I need you. I love you, you know that. Deeply. When this is over, if I pull through this okay, we’re going to get our life back. I need you, honey.”

She felt the tears spring to her eyes, and she hugged him, hard. She felt the sweat rising hotly from his shoulders.

“I love you, too, Tom,” was all she could say.

21

The library in the rented house was the real thing, an old-house, old-money library. Linen-white-painted bookshelves that held not just the requisite leather-bound antiquarian volumes in sets of ten and twenty and fifty, but real books as well, recent and not-so-recent hardcover editions, mostly politics and history, no fiction in sight. The sort of books that the owner of the house, right now perhaps drinking un caffè macchiato at a café in Siena, probably actually read. His library was the century-old prototype of Claire and Tom’s modern study back in Cambridge.

Captain Embry, dressed in civilian clothes (brand-new deep-indigo jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, both neatly pressed), sat on a hard chair at a side table, taking notes with a chewed Bic pen on a legal pad. Grimes (once again in his 1970s orange Day-Glo sweater) was sunk deep in a floral-upholstered wing chair, legs splayed.