For a moment, Tickner seemed at a loss. Lenny looked as if he might have something to add, but he kept himself in check.
“Have you two spoken on the phone?” Tickner asked.
“Before today?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Not ever? You never talked to her on the phone before today? Not even when you were dating?”
Lenny said, “Jesus Christ, what kind of question is that?”
Tickner snapped his head toward Lenny. “You have a problem?”
“Yeah, your questions are moronic.”
They started again with the death stares. I broke the silence. “I hadn’t spoken to Rachel on the phone since college.”
Tickner turned to me. His expression was openly skeptical now. I glanced behind him at Regan. Regan was nodding to himself. While they both looked off balance, I tried to press it. “Did you find the man and child in the Honda Accord?” I asked.
Tickner considered the question a moment. He looked back at Regan, who shrugged a why-not. “We found the car abandoned on Broadway near 145th Street. It’d been stolen a few hours earlier.” Tickner took out his notebook but didn’t look at it. “When we spotted you at the park, you began yelling about your daughter. Do you believe that she was the child in the car?”
“I thought so at the time.”
“But not anymore?”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t Tara.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I saw him. The child, I mean.”
“It was a he?”
“I think so.”
“When did you see him?”
“When I jumped on the car.”
Tickner spread his hands. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us exactly what happened?”
I told them the same story I’d told Lenny. Regan never moved from the wall. He still hadn’t said a word. I found that odd. As I spoke, Tickner seemed to be growing more and more agitated. The skin on his cleanly shaven head tightened, making the sunglasses, which still sat perched on the top of his skull, start sliding forward. He kept readjusting them. I saw the pulse near his temples flutter. His jaw was locked.
When I was done, Tickner said, “You’re lying.”
Lenny slid between Tickner and my bed. For a moment, I thought that they might come to blows, which, let’s face it, would not be good for Lenny. But Lenny never gave an inch. It reminded me of the time in third grade when Tony Merullo picked a fight with me. Lenny had stepped between us then, faced Tony bravely, and gotten clobbered.
Lenny stayed nose-to-nose with the larger man. “What the hell is wrong with you, Agent Tickner?”
“Your client is a liar.”
“Gentlemen, this interview is over. Get out.”
Tickner bent his neck so that his forehead pressed against Lenny’s. “We have proof he’s lying.”
“Let’s see it,” Lenny said. Then, “No, wait, forget it. I don’t want to see it. Are you arresting my client?”
“No.”
“Then get your sorry butt out of this hospital room.”
I said, “Lenny.”
With one more glare at Tickner to show he wasn’t intimidated, Lenny looked back at me.
“Let’s finish this now,” I said.
“He’s trying to hang you for this.”
I shrugged because I didn’t really care. I think Lenny saw that. He slid away. I nodded for Tickner to do his worst.
“You’ve seen Rachel before today.”
“I told you—”
“If you hadn’t seen or spoken to Rachel Mills, how did you know she’d been a federal agent?”
Lenny started to laugh.
Tickner quickly spun toward him. “What are you laughing at?”
“Because, numb-nuts, my wife is friends with Rachel Mills.”
That confused him. “What?”
“My wife and I talk to Rachel all the time. We introduced them.” Lenny laughed again. “That’s your proof?”
“No, that’s not my proof,” Tickner snapped, defensive now. “Your story about getting this ransom call, about reaching out to an old girlfriend like that. You expect that to fly?”
“Why,” I said, “what do you think happened?”
Tickner said nothing.
“You think I did it, right? That this was yet another elaborate scheme to, what, get another two million from my ex–father-in-law?”
Lenny tried to slow me down. “Marc . . .”
“No, let me just say something here.” I tried to get Regan into it, but he still looked off, so I locked eyes with Tickner. “Do you really think I staged all this? Why go through all the machinations of having this meeting in the park? How did I know you’d track me down there—hell, I still don’t know how you did that. Why would I bother leaping on a car like that? Why wouldn’t I have just taken the money and hidden it and come up with a story for Edgar? If I was just running a scam, did I hire this guy with the flannel shirt? Why? Why involve another person or a stolen car? I mean, come on. It makes no sense.”
I looked at Regan, who still wasn’t biting. “Detective Regan?”
But all he said was “You’re not being straight with us, Marc.”
“How?” I asked. “How am I not being straight with you?”
“You claim that before today you and Ms. Mills haven’t spoken on the phone since college.”
“Yes.”
“We have phone records, Marc. Three months before your wife was murdered, there was a call from Rachel’s house to yours. Do you want to explain that?”
I turned to Lenny for help, but he was staring down at me. This made no sense. “Look,” I said, “I have Rachel’s cell phone number. Let’s call her and find out where she is.”
“Do that,” Tickner said.
Lenny picked up the hospital phone next to my bed. I gave him the number. I watched him dial it, all the while trying to put it together. The phone rang six times before I heard Rachel’s voice tell me she could not answer her phone and that I should leave a message. I did so.
Regan finally peeled himself off the wall. He pulled a chair to the side of my bed and sat. “Marc, what do you know about Rachel Mills?”
“Enough.”
“You dated in college?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Two years.”
Regan spread his arms, all open and wide eyed. “See, Agent Tickner and I still aren’t sure why you called her. I mean, okay, you dated a long time ago. But if you haven’t been in touch at all”—he shrugged—“why her?”