Edge

what led up to it. She was going to be talking to Susan’s friends, her family. It was just a matter of time before Amanda got to the truth.”
    “And,” Freddy said, “we’re not completely sure that Susan actually did take her own life. She might’ve been . . . helped.”
    Alberts began to speak but then fell silent.
    Freddy, better at the dramatics than I, said, “Oh, going to say something about the coroner’s report ruling the death a suicide? Going to say you’ve looked into it? Why would you’ve done that?”
    Still, silence.
    I continued, “Your job was to hire somebody like Loving to find out the names of everybody Amanda had talked to about Susan’s death. Get all of Amanda’s notes, everything. And then kill her too.”
    Alberts’s shoulders sagged and he glanced around Yu’s house.
    I gave voice to his thought, which was too incriminating for Alberts to utter. “I know, you thought we were looking at Global Software Innovations and Peter Yu. . . . No, that was just bait to draw you out into the open. I suspected you and the senator but I didn’t have any real proof. I made sure you were on the list to get the interagency alert about Global. If you were guilty I figured you’d come here to plant evidence implicating Yu.”
    “I’m completely innocent of any wrongdoing. That’s all I’ll say. I want an attorney.”
    “Help us out here, Sandy,” I said in a reasonable voice. “We’ve got you cold. Come on.” I glanced toward the solid, unsmiling suspect with him. “I know you found him and the other mercenaries through your contacts at the Armed Services Committee, right? They put you in touch with Henry Loving. They arranged for the helicopter. And you were desperate to find out what we knew so you came up with the story about the investigation into warrantless taps.”
    His eyes swung desperately.
    I said, “Don’t take the heat for this, Sandy. Work with us. . . . We know you cut your ties to your lobbying outfit before you went to work with Stevenson but they were involved too, weren’t they?”
    A paltry shake of his head.
    “And the political action committee backing Stevenson? They need him to be the darling of the party. They couldn’t afford a scandal. Who there—at the PAC—was involved?”
    Alberts, near tears, blurted, “Senator Stevensonis a great man.” The protest was both humorous and remarkably sad. “He didn’t know. . . .”
    “What?” I asked firmly. “What didn’t he know?”
    Alberts’s shoulders slumped.
    I gazed at an FBI van up the street. Inside was the man whose house this was, Professor Peter Yu, and his wife. They’d agreed to let us use their place as a takedown set after they pretended to leave for work. Alberts looked that way too and it seemed he finally understood how completely scammed he’d been.
    Glancing at Freddy, whose nod gave me carte blanche to take over, I stepped a bit closer to Alberts. “We can work a deal, if you cooperate.”
    Alberts muttered, “To implicate the senator.”
    Freddy barked a laugh. “What else would we be interested in?”
    “I don’t think I can do that.”
    The word “think” was critical, since it told me he had acknowledged we had an edge over him. I articulated my position in general terms. “All I know is that you could spend the rest of your life in jail or you could spend a lot less than that.” I let the thought register. Then I gestured toward another agent, who approached. To Alberts I said, “We’re going to take you to detention now. Just think about what I said.”
    His lips tightened and his eyes closed momentarily.
    As he and his partner were led off, Claire duBois turned to me and actually managed to make me smile, nodding toward Alberts’s back and saying, “What you were telling me about game theory? How’s that for the Prisoners’ Dilemma?”

Chapter 70
    I WAS SITTING in Aaron Ellis’s office, again focused on one of the pictures his child had painted. Maybe it was a haystack with turrets. Maybe a yellow castle, gold or brass. Hard to say.
    The time was 10:30 a.m. Claire duBois was pulling up a chair beside me. My boss said, “He’s on his way up.”
    “In fact,” another voice filled the room, “ voilà ! He’s here.” U.S. Attorney Jason Westerfield paused in the doorway. “Was that a dark tone you were speaking in, Aaron? Ha, just being amusing. Okay pour entrer ?” Today he was dressed like an attorney, very different from his Saturday