Chương 4
Evelyn sat at a long conference table beneath a framed print of sailboats and removed her wedding ring.
Nora watched her place it on the table.
Her mother rubbed the pale indentation around her finger. “It hurts.”
“What?”
“My hand. It’s swollen.”
Nora almost said that she should put the ring back on. The words felt stupid and necessary.
Rachel Kim entered with two cups of coffee and a stack of forms.
“The Army has agreed to an independent observer when the backpack is opened,” she said. “The recorder stays with the local department overnight, then transfers jointly tomorrow morning. Nobody is touching internal storage before our examiner is present.”
“Who uploaded the clip?” Nora asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Could the recorder do that?”
“No.”
“Could Dad have scheduled it?”
“Not from the recorder itself.”
Grant sat near the door. “Danny wasn’t exactly a technology pioneer.”
“He used encrypted messaging,” Evelyn said.
Nora looked at her.
“For work,” Evelyn added. “He complained about it.”
Rachel opened a folder. “We need to talk about the recording’s authenticity.”
“It’s him,” Nora said.
“I believe you recognize your father. That is not the same as proving the file has not been edited.”
“He knew about the backpack.”
“Which you had in your possession.”
“So now I made it?”
“I’m telling you what Hale’s lawyers will say by breakfast.”
Evelyn picked up her ring and pushed it back onto her finger. “He already has lawyers?”
Rachel looked toward the window. News lights moved across the curtains.
“Everyone has lawyers now.”
They slept in adjoining rooms, though Nora barely slept. At three in the morning she woke to the sound of her mother talking.
Evelyn stood by the bathroom sink with the door almost closed, whispering into her phone.
“No, Gideon. Do not call me again.”
Nora sat up.
Her mother listened.
“I don’t care what you intended.”
Another pause.
“You had your chance in the church.”
Nora crossed the room and pushed the bathroom door open.
Evelyn turned.
“Give me the phone,” Nora said.
Her mother ended the call.
“What did he say?”
“That he wants to help.”
“With what?”
“The pension. The investigation. Your father’s reputation.”
“He’s threatening us.”
“He didn’t threaten me.”
“What exact words did he use?”
“Nora.”
“What words?”
Evelyn set the phone beside the sink. “He said that accusations made through an unverified recording could trigger a review of your father’s conduct, his mental fitness, and the circumstances of his deployment.”
“That’s a threat.”
“It may also be true.”
“You’re defending him.”
“I’m listening.”
“To the man Dad said ordered his death.”
“I listened to your father for thirty-two years. That does not mean he told me everything.”
Nora stepped back.
Her mother’s face had no makeup left on it. Without the elegant mourning coat and careful blonde hair, she looked like a woman who had been called from sleep to identify a body.
“What are you not telling me?” Nora asked.
Evelyn gripped the edge of the sink.
“Two months before Daniel left, General Hale came to the house.”
“Why?”
“He said your father had removed classified material from a secure environment.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed Daniel had become frightened of something he wouldn’t name.”
“What did Hale want?”
“Access to the office.”
Nora stared at her.
“You let him in?”
“He had two investigators with him. They showed identification. Your father was at Fort Meade.”
“You let Hale search Dad’s office?”
“They said it was an administrative inspection.”
“At our house.”
“At my house.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Afterward.”
“What did he do?”
Evelyn looked toward the hotel mirror rather than at Nora. “He slept in the guest room for ten days.”
The room’s ventilation system clicked on.
Nora folded her arms, then unfolded them because she looked too much like her father when she stood that way.
“What did they take?”
“A desktop drive. Papers. An old phone.”
“Did you tell them about the backpack?”
“I didn’t know anything was in it.”
“Did you tell them anything else?”
Evelyn’s eyes filled but did not spill.
“They asked whether he planned to travel to Virginia the following week.”
“And?”
“I said he had a meeting near Quantico.”
“With whom?”
“He never told me.”
“You gave Hale his schedule.”
“I told a senior officer where my husband said he was going.”
“You gave him his schedule.”
“Yes.”
The word sat between them.
The unfinished recording returned to Nora with new force.
The person who helped him is standing beside—
Her mother had been standing beside the coffin.
Evelyn saw the thought arrive.
“No,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Dad knew you told Hale?”
“Yes.”
“And he still hid the evidence in a bag you had access to?”
“The bag was with him.”
“Until his body came home.”
Her mother’s mouth tightened. “You think I helped kill him?”
“I think I don’t know what happened.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
“It is tonight.”
Evelyn slapped her.
The sound was not loud. The shock of it was.
Evelyn’s hand remained raised between them for a second. Then she lowered it and pressed her fingers against her own mouth.
Nora touched her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said.
Nora walked into the adjoining room and locked the door.
In the morning, she drank coffee from a paper cup and watched a muted news panel debate whether grief excused “the desecration of a burial flag.” One commentator said the recording sounded authentic but cautioned that emotional recognition was unreliable. Another said the general’s hand movement demonstrated consciousness of guilt. A retired prosecutor said it demonstrated a man reaching toward an object.
The video played every four minutes.
May you like
Nora began to hate the sight of herself.
At nine thirty, they went to a digital forensics laboratory in Alexandria. The facility occupied the second floor of an office building above a dentist and a company that sold commercial flooring. There were no dramatic steel doors, only a receptionist eating yogurt and a humming vending machine.
