“Nancy, I don’t know what to do about us, except to say that I would like it to continue. I don’t know how that would work, but I will try as hard as I can at making it work. But about the other thing—”
“The murders, you mean?”
“That’s right.”
“What about them?”
“What kind of reporter is your brother?”
Dan Hoffman was a dark, very handsome man with eyes that seemed to look right through you, even while he was being patient. He had Nancy’s high cheekbones, and when he turned his head so the light caught it I could see the same golden highlights in his hair.
I went through the whole thing for him, the third time today. I was starting to get good at it.
He heard me out, leaning back in his swivel chair, fingers laced behind his head. He was a good listener. Once or twice he leaned forward and made a note on a yellow legal pad.
When I was done he didn’t say anything for a while. Then he sat up straight and tapped a pencil on the desk. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because it has to be done. Because there’s nobody else who can
do it. Because—”
I stopped. Dan had started to hum softly: “The Impossible Dream.”
“Sorry,” he said. “But your name is going to be in this. And unless people can see right off where you are getting yours, they’re going to keep looking. Or make up their own answer. Woodstock was just the first.”
“I don’t have an angle, Dan.”
He looked at me for a while, nodding. Then he looked at his sister.
“How much can I trust him?” he said, as if he was talking about somebody in the next room. She swiveled around to look at me, and the two of them stared like I was an overrated painting.
“I’m not sure,” Nancy said. “Pretty much, I think, but I can’t be positive.”
He looked back at me. “You have to know that I am bound by rules just as strict as those governing the police and prosecutors. I can’t print something unless I can prove it.”
“I know that,” I said. “The point is, I don’t have anyplace else to go with this. He’s taken away my ability to move.”
“So what do you think I can do?”
“I don’t know if the murders are provable. Not in a way that will stand up in court, or even get a prosecutor to take it seriously. But I’ll be goddamned if I’ll walk away from it without sticking Doyle for something.”
“Membership in Die Bruders?”
“That’s what jumped out at me. It’s on the FBI list of subversive organizations and for an assistant chief of police to be a member is illegal.”
“Is he a member?”
“I think he’s the leader. Maybe you can prove that.”
“How?”
“You would know that better than me.”
“I’m just a lowly newspaper reporter.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard modesty from one of you guys.”
He laughed. It was a good laugh, a lot like his sister’s. It didn’t do the same things to me, but I could see that it came from the same source.