Читать книгу Do Not Go On - Bryan Furuness - Страница 11

As promised, here is the fleet of banker’s boxes containing documents, artifacts, and ephemera from the Easterday case. Below is my written statement—the first installment, anyway. The other installments are enclosed in the boxes to keep them in context. Happy hunting!

Onto the Easterdays and my first confession: After Ben fell from the tree, two things became clear. First, this family required extra attention. Second, a deputy marshal who failed to notice a witness roosting in a tree might not be up to the task of paying that attention. As I may have mentioned, I had a lot at stake in this case, so I took it upon myself to provide some additional support. Bugs, taps, cams, occasionally some additional personnel around town, along with more direct oversight from me.

Illegal? Technically. Wrong? Only if it’s wrong to do everything you can for the protection of a family. Since it’s never good for the Director to be caught off guard (there are no pleasant surprises in this business), I was determined not to be caught off guard again.

Except I was. Almost right away. The surprise was not that Ana called her mother. It wasn’t even that she called from a gas station in town. (At the farmhouse, all long-distance calls were routed through our switchboard for the same reason witnesses had to change their names: To make sure what was hidden would stay hidden.) In fact, I had prepared for this eventuality by tapping her mother’s phone, too. As I listened to Ana blab to her mother about Ben’s accident and injuries, I congratulated myself for being a step ahead of the game.

Then she asked her mother for something I did not expect.

I’ve combed through these banker’s boxes, Madame, searching for the overlooked clue that should have led me to expect her request. What did I miss? What could I have done differently to keep this family on track?

Even now, with the relative omniscience of hindsight, I don’t know. I had always thought a true surprise was only available to those who weren’t paying attention, but this case proved me wrong, again and again.

“I want you to reach out to Veedy,” Ana told her mother. “I want you to make a deal to bring us home.”