“No. No you don’t,” I said. There was no one else around. “Can I talk with you just for a moment?”
I knew he wouldn’t recognize me. He had no reason in the world to suspect who I was, nor that I would be here looking for him. He glanced around; I figured I looked harmless enough, or desperate. He nodded and stepped away from the elevator to a spot near a handicapped parking space and shrugged. “All right. Sure.”
On the ride down from Boston I’d gone over at least a dozen times what I would say. But my blood was racing and I was nervous and scared, and there was no chance it would come out the way I planned. “Mr. Bachman, I’ve got something to tell you that will take you by surprise … and maybe bring up some things that I know are still painful … things you may not want to talk about. But I need you to just hear me out—”
“Who are you?” he asked me, his brow wrinkling.
I didn’t know how else to say it. I just handed him a copy of the New York Times. There was a photo of me, one taken with Dave at an advertising industry function we had attended a few months back. It didn’t exactly look like I did now. I lifted my sunglasses. But the headline said it all: WESTCHESTER WOMAN SOUGHT IN CONNECTION TO HOTEL SHOOTINGS.
Bachman looked back up at me and his eyes grew wide.
His gaze darted around again, trepidation coming onto his face, and if a security guard had come by at that particular moment, I don’t know what he would have done.
“Mr. Bachman, there’s no reason for you to be alarmed. I know what you’ve recently been through, and if there was anyone else in the world I could talk to, I would—I swear!—and not put you in this position …”
He looked at me and then glanced back down at the article. “You’re Wendy Gould?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Ms. Gould, if you have any thoughts of me representing you, I’m afraid you’ve sought me out for the wrong reason. First, it’s not what I do; it’s not my specialty. I don’t do criminal work. And anyway, I’m not doing this kind of thing right now.”
“No, that’s not why I’m here,” I said. “I don’t need you to represent me—”
“You’re a federal fugitive, Ms. Gould.” He handed me back the paper. “I can’t talk to you. You’re wanted in connection with the murder of a government agent. Not to mention, if I remember correctly, the murder of your husband …”
“None of which is true.” If I could have shown him the truth with a single, steadfast look, my eyes as solid and steady as they’d ever been, I gave it to him now. “None. I swear. At least, not the way it’s being portrayed.”
“Then let me say, as a lawyer, Ms. Gould, someone’s doing an awfully good job of making you look bad.”
I swallowed, and nodded back with a resigned smile. “That’s the only part that is true. Mr. Bachman. Look, you can look around, but I’m the one who’s risking everything just being here with you now. You can see I’ve changed my appearance. What would it take for you to call for security or even the police and let them know? In an hour, everyone would know.”
“I appreciate the trust, Ms. Gould, and I’m truly sorry for your predicament, but unless you’re looking for someone to mediate the terms of handing yourself over to the police—”
“I can’t hand myself over to the police!” I shook my head defiantly. “I can’t. I’m not here because I found your name on some lawyer’s website. I’m here because you’re the only person I know who can help me prove that I’m being framed. Trust me. Otherwise I’d be as far away from here as I could. Please, just hear me out. Two minutes is all I’m asking. I’m begging you, Mr. Bachman … I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”
“Why me? You said you’re aware I’ve been through a situation of my own …”
“And that’s exactly why I’m here.”
Maybe it was the utter desperation on my face. Or that I had sought him out, the one person who could prove my innocence. But Bachman put down his bag. He nodded reluctantly. “You have two minutes. Make it good, Ms. Gould.”
“Do you know the name Curtis Kitchner?” I asked him.
“Kitchner? If I recall, he was the guy who was killed in New York up in that room?”
“That’s correct.”
He shrugged. “Then only what I’ve heard on the news.”
“Mr. Bachman, I did an incredibly foolish thing. I ended up in someone’s hotel room I had no right being in. I’d never done anything like that before in my life. But nothing happened up there … and I’ve had nothing to do with the murders I’m being implicated in. I was actually in the bathroom, preparing to leave, when I heard someone else come into the room.”
Bachman said, “I’m listening …”
Harried, I explained the whole thing to him. Hruseff. Curtis. How the agent killed him right in front of my eyes, and the second gun fell across the bed to me. “This person was a Homeland Security agent, Mr. Bachman. And I watched him kill Curtis. Not in a shoot-out. Not under any threat, or in self-defense as it’s been alleged. But in cold blood. Right in front of my eyes. Right there on the bed.”
Bachman shook his head in puzzlement at me. “Why?”
“That I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Curtis was a journalist. He was working on something that implicated the U.S. government in a shooting in Mexico. Look, I found something he wrote on the subject …” I reached inside my pocket and took out a copy of the article. “I’m certain he found out something to do with the Mexican drug trade. Something he shouldn’t have.”
“You said this other person in the room was a Homeland Security agent. He identified himself?”
“No. Afterward, I looked through his pockets and found his ID. And if he was an agent, he damn well wasn’t up there for any good. He was only there to kill Curtis, Mr. Bachman.”
The lawyer nodded, taking it in. We heard a car door slam, and a man who had parked nearby walked up to the elevator. Bachman smiled briefly, uttering, “Morning,” as I looked away. The elevator opened and the man stepped in. Then Bachman turned back to me. “The problem is, Ms. Gould, two other people ended up dead.”
I told him the rest. How I picked up the gun, knowing that the killer would come for me in the bathroom. How I identified myself and still the guy just raised his weapon. “Yes, I shot him. He was preparing to shoot me.”
“And then you just ran?”
I told him how I ran from the room and how the guy’s partner tried to silence me too. Then I told him how Dave died as well. I went through the whole thing. “Not in the kitchen. Not by my hand. They shot him! I left that gun on the bed back in that hotel room, Mr. Bachman. I swear!”
He kept looking at me with this lawyerly, evaluating stare. I had no idea if he actually believed me. But I kept going.
“I tried to turn myself in. You heard what happened at Grand Central the other day. I wasn’t trying to run away. They’re trying to silence me, Mr. Bachman. For what I saw. A close friend was trying to work out my arrest, and he ended up being shot too. That’s why I can’t turn myself in. Not until I find out why they’re trying to kill me.”
“So how do I fit in?” he asked. “Assuming I even believe all this. You said I was the only person who could help you.”
I reached inside my jeans and pulled out Curtis’s BlackBerry.