Текст книги "Airtight"

Автор книги: David Rosenfelt

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, and in fact I was sure he was right. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to implicate the “Brayton bomber” in the court run by Chris Gallagher. “But I’ve still got to ask the questions.”

He shrugged. “Ask away.”

“Do you have any idea who set the explosion?”

“Not the slightest. You’d be better off asking the police.”

I nodded. “My partner is doing that right now. I’m asking if you have any instincts about it.”

He shook his head. “I don’t; this has been a peaceful community for as long as I remember. But people are very, very upset, and rightfully so. Having said that, there is no one I know in this town that I would consider capable of such an act.”

“Are you going to win your case?”

“I have every confidence,” he said, without much conviction.

“Is that your official position?”

He smiled. “It is.”

“What impact would Brennan replacing Judge Dembeck have had on the case?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say, which is one of the reasons you’re wasting your time.”

“So you as the lead lawyer, and Mayor, had no preference for either Judge Dembeck or Judge Brennan?”

He thought for a moment, as if deciding how honest to be. “I doubt that Judge Dembeck is favorable to our position, based on her previous rulings, and her questions during oral arguments. Brennan would have been a wild card, hard to categorize.”

“Why?”

“A couple of reasons,” he said. “First, it was in his nature to be unpredictable; I think he relished it. Second, I’m not aware of any similar cases he had ever heard, and he had never written on the matter.”

“So you researched it?”

“Of course. Not to do so would have been unprofessional and borderline negligent.”

“So net-net, Brennan would have been better for your side than Dembeck? That’s your view?”

“Probably, but it’s all very, very speculative. Other lawyers might feel completely differently about it. Anticipating judicial decisions is no way to make a living.”

I was pretty much running out of questions, mostly because of his answers so far. If he was right that Brennan’s joining the court would be a possible problem for Carlton’s side, then they would have been the ones most inclined to prevent him from doing so. Which made them my most likely suspects.

I thanked him and walked over to the police station, which was in the same complex. Emmit was just coming out, having spoken to the lead detective assigned to the bombing of the Carlton guesthouse.

“They’ve got zip; the perp left nothing behind at the scene,” he said. “Which surprises them. They think it’s an amateur who behaved like a pro.”

“Why are they thinking amateur?”

“Because everybody in the town is pissed at Carlton and they aren’t the types to go out and hire professional muscle. So somebody got frustrated and angry, and did the job. They were just lucky.”

Holland had described the perpetrator in similar terms; no doubt he was in touch with his officers. “Is there a leader in the town on this issue, other than Holland?”

Emmit nodded. “According to the detective, the unofficial leader is Alex Hutchinson.”

I thought about it for a few moments, then shook my head. “Doesn’t work for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“According to Holland, the town’s side would have had reason to be in favor of Brennan joining the court. They might have bombed Carlton’s guesthouse, but killing Brennan is a tough sell. It would run counter to their interests. If there’s a killer we can point to, he’s on the other side.”

Emmit nodded his understanding. “Makes sense.”

“So let’s go talk to Alex Hutchinson.”

“You just said that doesn’t work for us.”

“We’re here anyway; maybe Hutchinson will say something to change my mind. Can’t hurt to talk to him; where is he?”

“She’s at the diner,” Emmit said.

“What?”

“Alex Hutchinson is a woman.”

Lucas … something happened this morning. I was watching television at about ten forty-five, and the satellite went out for about five minutes. Then, maybe twenty minutes later, it went out for three minutes. Could it be the weather? Would that have happened everywhere, or just certain areas?

Sorry to say serial numbers have been scraped off. He’s smart. Please be smarter (just this once).

Let me hear from you.

“What was the weather like there this morning?”

“The weather?” Julie asked, obviously puzzled as to why I had called to ask that question.

“Yes. Bryan’s satellite television went out for a few minutes twice this morning. It was out for five minutes at ten forty-five, then for three minutes at eleven ten.”

“I don’t know … I was in my office. I know it was raining; Danielle went out for coffee and took my umbrella.”

“OK, we-”

Julie interrupted me, knowing exactly where I was heading. “I’ll get a subpoena and get the satellite companies to give me any information on disruptions this morning. Maybe it’s isolated to a specific area.”

“That’s why Bryan told me about it.”

“I’ll get right on it,” she said. “It will give me something to do.”

I could hear the stress in her voice, and I felt for her. I also felt for me. But I especially felt for Bryan. “Julie, you OK?” I asked.

“Yes, other than the fact that my head feels like it’s going to explode.”

“I know the feeling. Did you get a chance to look through those Appeals Court cases?”

I could hear the sudden anger in her voice. I had always been struck by her ability to change moods on a dime; some people found it intimidating, but I was not one of them. “Did I get a chance?” she asked. “No, I went miniature golfing instead. Of course I got a chance.”

“Sorry. Unless you have a better idea, I’m focusing in on Carlton versus the town of Brayton, NY. Emmit and I are there now.”

“The fracking case. That’s the one I would go with as well.”

“Good. I need to know what impact Brennan not joining the court would have been expected to have on that case.”

“You think that could have something to do with Brennan’s murder?”

“In real life? No. But it could serve our purpose.”

She promised to dig more into the case immediately, and then asked, “How’s Bryan holding up?”

“Seems OK,” I said. “He’s tougher than I would have thought.”

“Doesn’t surprise me at all,” she said.

We got to Alex’s Country Diner at around one thirty, at what should have been near the end of the lunch hour rush. There were three cars in the parking lot; my guess was that Alex’s Country Diner hadn’t seen an actual rush in a very long time.

There were only ten tables in the place, and two were occupied, plus another three people were eating at the counter. In terms of employees, there was a woman behind the counter, and another at the cash register. Each was in her thirties; they could have been sisters.

It turned out that Alex Hutchinson was the cashier, and when we identified ourselves she nodded as if she was expecting us. She called out to her colleague to cover the register, and we went to a booth near the back.

“I’ve got nothing to tell you now that I didn’t tell you last time,” she said.

“This is the first time we’ve spoken to you,” I said.

“Don’t you guys talk to each other? Two other officers questioned me the other day.”

“They were local; we’re New Jersey State,” Emmit said.

She laughed a very likable laugh, one that said she couldn’t have been less intimidated by us. “New Jersey? What is it you think I did in New Jersey?”

“Actually, this works better if we ask the questions, so let’s start over,” I said. “Did you supply the other officers with your whereabouts when the explosion took place?”

“I told them I was at home, reading a story to my kids. The kids that Carlton is trying to poison.”

“You seem angry at him.”

“Duhhhh,” was her way of telling me I made a stupid statement. I almost laughed myself, because she was right, and called me on it.

“But not angry enough to blow up his guesthouse?” I asked.

“If I thought blowing up his guesthouse would protect my family, I’d blow up his guesthouse. But it won’t, so I didn’t.”

“Maybe you thought it would scare him into keeping the land pure.”

She laughed, quickly and derisively. “The only thing that scares the Richard Carltons of the world is not having a lot of money. What scares me is not being able to keep my family healthy.”

“Just so I understand, you’re not opposed to violence, as long as the cause is just?”

“What they’re trying to do is violence, and the worst kind. It’s murder for money.”

I liked her a lot, and in the moment identified with her. I was having some family protection issues myself.

I changed the subject. “What do you know about Judge Danny Brennan?”

“The basketball player who got murdered?”

“That’s the one.”

“My husband played against him in college, and he got stabbed to death, I think it was in his garage. And he became a judge. That exhausts my knowledge of him.”

“Do you have any thoughts about how he might have ruled in the case your town is involved in?”

“Not a clue, and I had no idea he’d be involved in our case. But if he would have been on our side, then Carlton’s the killer. Go get him.”

I turned to Emmit. “Might as well.”

Before we left I gave Alex my card, and said, “Please make me your first call if there’s anything you think I should know. Anything at all. I’m here to help, and to put the people that are doing this away.”

She nodded and said, “I will.” I believed her, and I thought she believed me. It seemed like Alex Hutchinson only said things if she meant them.

On the way out, Emmit smiled and said, “I don’t think it would be a good idea to get on her bad side.”

“You got that right.”

While we were at the diner, I had gotten a message from Deb Guthrie, asking me to call her back. I did so as soon as we got into the car.

“You’re up against somebody that’s good,” she said.

“How so?”

“We traced your brother’s e-mail back to the IP address. It’s in Afghanistan.”

“That’s crazy, Deb. There’s no way he’s in Afghanistan.”

“I didn’t say he was. It’s a trick that’s used. Not to make it too complicated, they route the traffic through servers set up for the purpose of concealment. He’s probably using multiple servers in different countries; the next e-mail your brother sends could come up with an IP address in some other country.”

“So no way to crack it?”

“Not likely,” she said. “But your brother could find it out himself; there are websites he could go to. He’d get the address before it’s routed.”

“He doesn’t have web access, only e-mails.”

“Like I said, you’re up against somebody that’s good.”

There really wasn’t much for Chris Gallagher to do.

He had accomplished his initial goal, which was to send Lucas Somers out in search of Steven’s exoneration. He had no idea what Somers would come up with, but he had no intention of extending the deadline.

After seven days, if the goal had not been achieved, Lucas Somers’s brother would die. Gallagher didn’t see that as revenge; he saw it as justice, as a form of equality. He wouldn’t be happy about it; he’d much prefer to have Somers succeed. But nor would he feel any particular remorse. He had seen plenty of innocent people sacrificed for a mission; it was simply a fact of life.

If Somers failed, an outcome probably more likely than not, Gallagher would have to come up with another way to defend Steven in death. But he had confidence that he’d figure out something, and wouldn’t worry about it until events dictated it.

Which left him with some time on his hands, a situation that Gallagher was neither used to nor comfortable with. He wasn’t in hiding; there was no need for that. Somers was obviously smart enough to realize that he had nothing to gain and everything to lose by putting out an arrest warrant, so the police were neither after him nor looking for him. If Bryan Somers wound up dying, then of course that would change. No matter; Gallagher could handle it either way.

But hanging out and watching television while Somers was doing the work wasn’t quite Gallagher’s style, so instead he decided to more closely monitor the situation. He would follow Somers from a distance, to see firsthand what he was up to.

The act of doing so would not be difficult. Gallagher had trailed the enemy through mountain terrain in Afghanistan; by comparison the New York State Thruway was a piece of cake. And Somers would not be alert to the possibility; he would have no reason to think he was being followed.

The purpose was not just to kill time, nor to make sure that Somers wasn’t able to locate his brother. The house and shelter was owned by a marine buddy of Gallagher’s, but there would be no record of them having been together in the service. They were both Black Ops, which in army terms was to say that they barely even existed.

Gallagher’s buddy had done what buddies do; he didn’t ask questions when Gallagher asked for the use of the place for ten days. It even gave the guy an excuse to visit his sister in Syracuse.

Gallagher was going to follow Somers to gather information and help him judge the veracity of what Somers was telling him. He fully expected Somers to dramatically exaggerate his investigative progress, thinking that it would make Gallagher inclined to spare his brother.

So Gallagher followed Somers and his partner out to Brayton, and waited as he went into the town hall, and then on to the diner. Gallagher had no idea who he met with in the town hall, but saw that the cashier in the diner accompanied them to the booth in the back as soon as they walked in. Clearly they were not there for lunch, they were there to talk to her.

When they left, he decided not to follow them, but rather to enter the diner. The place was almost empty, and he found it easy to strike up a conversation with the woman who said her name was Alex Hutchinson.

She was more than willing to talk about her crusade to protect her town and family from the environmental disaster she was sure they were facing. And when she mentioned the fact that it was before the Court of Appeals, Gallagher knew why Somers had gone there in the first place.

He left to head back to his motel room, where he would research the case on the Internet.

It would give him something to do.

I asked Emmit to gather any information detectives had uncovered regarding an alibi for Steven Gallagher.

I had not been paying much attention to that part of the investigation for a couple of reasons. First of all, I strongly believed he was the killer, so by definition there could be no credible alibi. But secondly, I feared that just an alibi and a proclamation of Steven’s innocence would never be enough for his brother. We were going to need to come up with an actual guilty party, and just developing an alibi for Steven didn’t get us there.

“Nothing good to report,” Emmit said when he entered my office carrying a large folder with the accumulated information. “Nobody has come forward claiming to having seen Steven Gallagher that night. He made a couple of phone calls, but they were three and four hours before the murder. The last e-mail he sent was earlier that day, to his brother.”

For some reason, when I heard that information, it struck me differently than it had Emmit. But before I voiced my point of view, I asked Emmit to give me a half hour with the detectives’ reports to go over them.

When he came back I said, “Somebody saw Gallagher that night.”

“Where did you see that?” he asked.

“The nine-one-one call. Whoever made that call must have seen him.”

“Unless Gallagher told him about it the next day.”

I shook my head. “He was a loner, had almost no friends, but he happened to see someone the next day and mention that he murdered a judge? Doesn’t make sense.”

“So someone saw him come home with blood on his clothes, made the anonymous call, but hasn’t come forward,” he said.

“It was nighttime, Steven was wearing dark clothing, but somebody saw the blood and knew that’s what it was? And then connected Steven to a judge’s murder twenty miles away?”

“Maybe they knew Steven, and knew Brennan had sentenced him.”

“It’s a stretch, but maybe,” I said. “How did Steven get to and from Brennan’s house? He didn’t own a car.”

“That’s bothered me as well,” Emmit said. “Brennan lived miles from a bus stop, and there’s certainly no bus that goes anywhere near a route from Steven’s house in Paterson to Brennan’s neighborhood.”

I nodded. “Have them check the buses anyway, and every cab company that services the area.”

“Will do. Maybe Steven has a friend that gave him a ride, then realized what had happened and called nine-one-one anonymously.”

“So how come we haven’t found the friend?”

Emmit shrugged. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Somebody called nine-one-one, and we found the bloody clothes. With Brennan’s DNA. You can’t wish that away, Luke.”

Right then all I was wishing was that I hadn’t been so intent on developing a lie, because it had stopped me from searching for the truth. “Emmit, this kid was strung out on drugs. He lived in a dump with no locks on the windows. Almost never went out of the house. He had no friends. No support structure. Danny Brennan was about to sentence him to prison.”

“And?”

“And I’m not saying it happened, but can you think of an easier person to frame?”

Emmit didn’t seem convinced, which was OK, because I wasn’t, either. “This murder was done in the dark, with no one around. As far as we know, there wasn’t a single piece of evidence at the scene which would have led us to the killer.”

It was my turn to cut the speech short. “So?”

“So why bother to frame him at all? The killer got away clean. Why go to all this trouble? It would only add to the risk.”

“Why do you ever frame someone? So the dumb cops would stop looking for the real killer. And in this case maybe there was another motive. Maybe it wasn’t just the killer they were protecting. Maybe they were protecting the reason for the killing.”

“You mean one of Brennan’s cases?”

I nodded. “Maybe we’ve been looking in the right place all along.”

Emmit was clearly skeptical. “You believe all this?”

“Probably not, but there’s one other thing that bugs me,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“That the informant called us. The Feds had a hotline being advertised constantly on television; they even had a reward offered. But someone anonymously calls us. If it were one of our regular informants, I could understand it. But it obviously wasn’t. So why did he call us?”

“You have a theory on that?” he asked.

“I do. They thought we could be more easily manipulated than the Feds. That we’d take the bait, and maybe even go in shooting. They thought we’d be dumb enough to take it all at face value.

“And you know what?” I asked. “They were right.”

Bryan … we’re checking into weather patterns. Did you hear any thunder? Can you hear anything outside at all? Making progress, Brother … hang in there.

Julie said to tell you that she loves you. It wasn’t her fault … it was mine. You need to know that.

Finally Tommy Rhodes believed he was earning his money.

Well, maybe not all that money, but a lot of it. Because this was one of the most difficult things he had ever had to do.

Once again Frankie Kagan was along to provide protection against any unexpected intruders. Tommy would have preferred that Frankie help in the actual operation, since it involved some heavy work, but it also required a technical sophistication and expertise that Frankie didn’t possess. Frankie’s expertise was better suited to stabbing judges to death in their garages.

Explosives, by definition, are designed to destroy, to obliterate. As such, they often don’t have to be placed with great precision; if the bomb is big enough, the job will get done.

Sometimes, of course, the placement of explosives becomes an art. For instance, in the implosion of an aging building or sports stadium, they must be placed strategically, so that not only will the target come down, but it will come down in a specified and predictable manner.

Tommy had a great deal of military experience with all kinds of munitions, but this assignment was particularly challenging. It had to be done in darkness, in a period of a few days, but that was not what made it difficult.

Man-made structures are finite; like baseball managers who are hired to be fired, structures are built to eventually come down. Explosives can eventually hasten the process, but the end result is inevitable.

This was different. Nature was the target, at least the primary one. And the goal was to inflict damage that would take years, if not decades, to overcome.

He finished the job and set the timers for Saturday at 8 PM. For Tommy Rhodes that moment would be his crowning achievement, albeit a secret one.

But he would certainly have earned his money.

My dislike for Richard Carlton was pretty much instantaneous.

He deigned to see me in his suite in the Pierre Hotel on 61st Street, between 5th Avenue and Madison. I was greeted at the door by a guy who identified himself only as William, and who seemed to be an assistant of some sort. Or, more likely, based on the way William fit into his jacket, a bodyguard.

He led me into a private dining room, said, “He’ll be right out,” and left the room. Carlton came in a few minutes later.

In a bathrobe.

“You didn’t have to get dressed up,” I said.

He chuckled an annoying chuckle, which made me sorry I hadn’t been the one to blow up his guesthouse. Then, “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

I had decided to be aggressive about this interview. Since there was a very good chance that I was going to claim to Gallagher that the real killer was somewhere on the Carlton side of the court battle, I needed to act as if that’s what I believed.

I had to keep asking myself how I would proceed if this were a normal investigation, and in this case, if I suspected Carlton, I would try to shake him. He was obviously complacent and feeling in control, so I would scare him as best I could.

“I am conducting an investigation into the murder of Judge Daniel Brennan.”

He looked surprised. “I thought that crime was solved rather violently. Wasn’t a young man shot to death?”

“If the crime were solved I wouldn’t be here,” I said.

“Then why are you here?”

“We have strong reason to believe that the murder of Judge Brennan is directly connected to the fracking case before the Court of Appeals.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that the Judge was considered a solid vote on behalf of the town of Brayton.” I was vastly overstating it; Julie had solicited opinions that confirmed Holland’s view that Brennan was more likely to side with the town than Judge Dembeck. But it was far from a slam dunk.

“So?”

I decided not to answer that directly, at least not right then. “You share ownership of the land in question with an offshore company, Tarrant Industries.”

Carlton was clearly annoyed with my impertinence. “My company shares ownership, not me personally.”

“You own eighty percent of your company.”

“Is that a question?” He made a motion to look at his watch, as if he was late. It would have been more effective had he been wearing a watch.

“Tarrant Industries has set up a structure which is difficult to penetrate. Can you tell me the names of the principals of that company?”

“No,” he said.

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“I can’t, but I wouldn’t if I could.”

“Are you denying that you own Tarrant as well?”

“I do not own Tarrant; that much I can tell you,” he said.

“Mr. Carlton, are you familiar with the concept of motive?”

He was now openly hostile. “What are you saying?”

“Your chances of making hundreds of million of dollars have increased dramatically now that Judge Brennan will not be on that court.”

He stood up. “You clearly have no idea who you are talking to. This interview is over. Direct any further communication to my attorney.”

With that he strode out of the room, and William entered moments later. “If you’ll follow me, Lieutenant…”

“Just a heads-up, William. Carlton seems a little pissy today.”

I can’t hear anything … total silence. It’s as if I’m at the bottom of the earth.

It was her fault, Lucas, and it was yours. But I can’t deal with that now. All I seem to be able to do is watch television, and the clock. I don’t think five minutes has gone by without me looking at the clock.

Please tell me about your investigation. I need something to think about that doesn’t involve me worried about being able to breathe.

“Three areas in New Jersey and one in Long Island experienced outages,” Julie said.

“But the Long Island one lasted for twenty minutes, so it doesn’t seem to fit what Bryan said. All the documents from the satellite company are in the folder, and I included a map showing where they are. The supervisor for that area was very helpful.”

Julie and I were having a quick dinner at a coffee shop near her office. Everything seemed to be quick these days, including the days themselves. Bryan was running out of time, so every second seemed precious.

“Terrific,” I said.

“What does it do for us?” she asked, picking at her French fries. Julie is the healthiest eater I know; she throws down broccoli and brussel sprouts like I do M amp;M’s. But this time she ordered a burger and fries, which probably said something about her mental state.

“At this point not enough. But if we get more information, we can cross-check it against this.”

She asked that I bring her up to date on the status of the investigations, which I did, starting with my concerns about Steven Gallagher’s ability to get to and from the crime scene.

“You really think he could have been framed?” she asked, her tone clearly displaying her skepticism.

“I think there’s a lot that a defense attorney could have used, if I had let it get to that.”

“He could have hitched a ride with a friend. He could have stolen a car and then dumped it.”

“There is no evidence that this kid ever harmed a fly in his entire life. He had probably been before a half-dozen judges on drug offenses in the past. All of a sudden he tracks down this one and becomes Jack the Goddamn Ripper?”

She seemed exasperated. “Come on, Luke, you’ve never arrested a first-time murderer? People snap, and drugs make them even more unstable.”

“You seem anxious for me to be wrong about this,” I said.

She shook her head. “I actually don’t care either way right now if Steven Gallagher was a killer or an altar boy. But I want you to focus on the prize, and not waste your time on re-solving the case.”

For some reason while she was talking I was looking at the wedding band she wore on her finger. I’m not sure why; I don’t think I’d ever noticed a ring on a woman in my life.

“You know, when I got there that day, the first thing Steven yelled was something like, ‘You said you wouldn’t come back here.’”

“So?”

“So maybe he thought he was talking to people that had framed him. Maybe they left the bloody clothes there, and he thought they had come back.”

She sighed. “You need to separate the facts there are from the facts that you wish there were,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means he had motive. It means he probably couldn’t think clearly because of the drugs. It means he had the Judge’s blood on his clothes. And it means there’s not a jury in America that wouldn’t have convicted him.”

“That’s all true.” She was right in that I was having some difficulty in separating what I wanted to be facts from what I knew to be facts.

“But you’re not buying it?”

“Not entirely, no. I think there is a chance that Steven Gallagher was innocent.”

Julie seemed to decide there were much better things to do than continue pursuing that topic. “Let’s talk about the court case,” she said. “I’ve done some work on that.”

That sounded promising. “What did you come up with?”

“Carlton’s got some financial troubles.”

“His company? Or Carlton personally?” Remembering him in his robe in that hotel suite did not conjure up a picture of a guy worried about where his next meal was coming from.

“Both. The company has been bleeding money for quite a while now; it seems that each new generation of Carltons is less competent than the one before it. And Richard is in the middle of a tough divorce, which is sure to cost him a bunch of cash.”

“Interesting,” I say. “If he wins the court case, he gets four hundred million dollars. If he loses, he keeps a tract of undeveloped land near a depressed town. Pretty powerful motive. Not beyond a reasonable doubt, but definitely strong stuff.”

“Are you trying to convince a jury, or Gallagher?”

“Gallagher. Which might be harder.”

We got quiet for a while, neither of us eating our food. We were frustrated with each other, because neither of us could make the situation better.

Finally, she said, “Luke, I know it’s a long way from happening, but if you are able to do this, to prove his brother innocent, will he let Bryan go?”

“I might be crazy, but I believe that he will. He’s got a sense of justice that he follows, like an internal road map that tells him right and wrong.”

“But that would mean you would have killed an innocent man, his own brother. Wouldn’t he have to do the same to Bryan to satisfy that sense of justice?”

What she said made sense yet didn’t ring true. “I don’t think so; these are the rules he’s set up, and I think he’ll follow them.”

“And what if you can’t convince him that you have the proof? Will he…,” she said, unable to finish the sentence.

“I think he will.”

We were both quiet for a few moments, and then she said, “And then what will you do?”

“I’ll hunt him down and kill him, if it takes me twenty years,” I said. “So maybe he and I are not that different.”

She looked me in the eyes, so intensely that I thought she could see through the back of my head. “You’re very, very different. Did you tell Bryan I was sorry?”

“I did. Should I tell him you want him back? Back with you?”

She hesitated. “This is ground I’ve never covered before, Luke. Do I say what will make him feel good? Or do I tell the truth?”

“It depends what the truth is,” I said.

“The truth is that right now, at this moment, if you told me the only way to save his life would be for me to go on with our marriage, I would do it in a heartbeat. I care very deeply for him, and I would do anything to protect him. But if he comes back, and we resume as if nothing has happened, it ultimately will not work. He’ll know that as surely as I would.”