a fine job of it.
He pushed away from the table. The chair legs caught and he nearly went over backward, throwing his legs out and recovering his balance. But he was unsteady on his feet as he stood and roamed the room, his eyes unable to leave the screen and the piece of paper carrying his daughters’ handiwork. He paced. Hurried into the kitchen and popped a beer and drank from the can greedily as he continued to contemplate what it all meant. He knew what it meant, of course, but he couldn’t allow it to mean that, so his effort was to reframe the evidence into something that made sense, offered an alternate universe.
He pried his eyes away long enough to glance at his watch: 11:28. He pulled the BlackBerry off his hip and held it in his palm, then sneaked a glimpse over his shoulder toward the girls’ room. This was the collision of work and family, this moment and moments like it. The after-hours demands of the job and his allowing it to interfere.
He scrolled through the BlackBerry’s address book to Myra’s entry. His sister-in-law or Kevin would willingly come over and be in the house for the sake of his daughters if asked. Kevin was probably awake anyway.
He worked the device and his thumb hovered over the green key, now with Fiona’s cell number highlighted. Then, not.
The list server evidence was not yet evidence—it would have to arrive in written form from either Boldt or Buddy Cornell to be of use to Walt’s prosecuting attorney. Walt had mistakenly—stupidly, he thought—requested that Boldt pressure his people to authenticate the evidence, to deliver it formally. Could he now undo that request without sending up a red flag? Was he willing to do so for her? Did he dare jump to such conclusions without giving her a chance to explain things?
But he told himself he wasn’t jumping to any conclusions. First had been Gale’s NA sponsor telling him Gale was atoning to women, and Walt’s recollection of the photo of the wide-eyed black kid on Fiona’s wall, photos taken of Katrina victims: New Orleans, Gale’s home city. Now the list server e-mail address providing a direct link between Gale and Fiona. Combined with Fiona’s recent erratic behavior, Walt began to see his suspicion of Kira—and Fiona’s reaction to it—in a new light. He thought back to his interview of Vince Wynn on the night of the backyard shooting, and Wynn’s mention of having received an e-mail from the list server announcing Gale’s parole, nearly two weeks late; he connected this, rightly or wrongly, to Fiona’s going pale at the Advocates dinner as she got a look at her phone. Had she, too, received a list server e-mail that night? Had the man at the back of the conference room, the man Kira had mistaken for her abductor, Roy Coats, actually been Martel Gale? If Kira knew about Fiona’s past it was conceivable she’d experienced a transference, making Fiona’s anxiety her own, and not realizing the difference. The two kids working valet parking had described the man as a hulk of almost comic book proportions: that fit with Gale’s steroid-induced enormity.
If he drove up to see her, what excuse would there be later for his not having used a ruling of probable cause to conduct a search of the property? He no longer needed the Engletons’ permission for such a search. He had to shed his emotional response and think this through more carefully. Where did the evidence lead? What was hard evidence, and what amounted to speculation? What would his record show or suggest? Detailed records were kept of his e-mails, phone calls, radio calls, informal meetings, proper interrogations. Could he untangle that to keep charges off of Fiona? Was that what he wanted to do? Was that something he was willing to do?
He had prided himself over a career of public service at having never corrupted a case or allowed himself to be corrupted. The office had accepted donations of Hummers, RVs, boats, trailers, and cash—He had never once taken so much as a gas can or a dime for himself. He’d had ample opportunity to screen friends from drunk driving charges or excuse parking tickets. Never had done it. But Fiona was different. Not only could he forgive a woman from defending herself against the likes of a Martel Gale, but after nearly two years of avoiding women in the wake of his marriage’s collapse, he’d now