Page 42 of Badlands

Mercifully, Sharp did not play it a third time. Rather, he let the tape continue. After another, briefer rant—this one directed at Corrie—Driver resumed answering her questions, now with cold suspicion and biting, cynical replies. Then came her second mistake: phrasing a question about Mandy in a way that implied she might have taken her own life.

“How do you know someone else wasn’t there, forcing her?”

“We’re considering every avenue—”

“You’re starting to sound like the cops I’ve been dealing with these past two months… Look, I’m done with this conversation. My daughter’s dead—now go do your shit.”

Since this was essentially the end of the interview, Sharp did not replay the final, bitter exchange. He didn’t need to. Instead, he snapped off the recorder and let a brief silence settle over the room. Then he looked questioningly at the OPR representative, who gave a faint shake of his head. Sharp turned back to Corrie.

“Agent Swanson, we’ve now listened to the conversation that prompted Horace Driver’s complaints. At this time, it seems most germane to ask: Do you feel his complaints are justified?”

Justified? Hell, no. This bastard is so zealous about filing complaintshe had to be threatened with arrest. I’m just a fresh victim he can spew venom on.

Corrie didn’t say this aloud, of course: looking on herself as a victim was the wrong approach. Instead, it was her turn to take a deep breath.

“Sir,” she said, “listening to the conversation, I can see why Mr. Driver was offended. He was overwhelmed by grief over his daughter’s death. The mindset in which I approached the interview was primarily what he might be able to offer me to help solve this case.” She paused to lick her lips. “In retrospect, I can see I pushed ahead too quickly in my eagerness to question Mr. Driver. I carelessly conveyed personal feelings about an issue sensitive to him. I was not as tactful as I should have been, or cognizant of Driver’s state of mind… which, by that point, he’d made clear. I ignored my training at the Academy and the mentoring I’d received from Agent Morwood and yourself. There is no excuse I can offer. All I can do is tell you how sorry I am that this happened. I realize Mr. Driver was offended not without reason. I let you and the Bureau down, and I will make every effort to learn from this mistake and ensure it never happens again.”

She exhaled with a long shudder. There: she’d said it all. She’d laid it all out on the table, plowing ahead even as Sharp had once or twice opened his mouth to interject. It had been important to her, she realized in hindsight, to do this: she knew she’d screwed up, but deep down she felt this was an overreaction by both Driver and the Bureau—and she wanted to make it clear, without needing to be told, that she understood her mistake… but clear on her own terms.

Now she glanced from Sharp to the OPR rep and back again. Her mentor was looking a little less sleepy than usual. For a moment, their eyes locked silently. And then he nodded.

“I think, Agent Swanson,” he said, “that you’ve done as good a job at getting to the crux of this issue as we could have. But you’re going to have to tell all this to Mr. Driver as well, in the form of an apology. In this kind of situation, it’s as important you go through the process with him as you have with us.Youneed to own your actions;heneeds to know you’ll use this to do better.”

Corrie had wondered if this would be one of the conditions. The good news was that—seeing the OPR rep unexpectedly stand up from his seat and start moving away from the table while adjusting his tie—there might be no further consequences: no keelhauling, no flogging round the fleet. But the thought of seeing Driver face-to-face again, in any capacity, was sufficiently unnerving as to almost mitigate the relief she felt.

The OPR worker nodded to each of them in turn, then left the room, silently closing the door behind him. Sharp closed his binder, snapped off the buttons on the desk, put the recorder away. His slow, deliberate movements seemed gauged to let the pressurized atmosphere in the interview room deflate a little. Finally, he sighed and glanced at the overhead mic—signaling it was off—then turned his eyes to Corrie.

“I’m sorry you had to endure that.”

He stopped. When it became clear he was waiting for a response, Corrie nodded.

“I’ve been in rooms like this before—on both sides of the table. There’s always a reason these reviews take place. In this case—” he stopped to pat the folder—“I have two takeaways. The first is that Driver was an exceedingly difficult interview. He was hurting, but he was also eager for confrontation. He’d been badly treated by law enforcement—and you took the brunt of that.” He paused. “He’d lost a daughter—and, by the way, he lost his job, as well.”

“I didn’t know that,” Corrie said.

“He missed work searching for his daughter, and Geo, being the giant company it is, simply fired him.

“Sometimes it’s the people we’re sworn to protect that can be a big pain in the ass. We can’t change that. And we can’t change the Bureau’s red tape, which you’ve just experienced here in this room.”

Now he pushed his chair back from the desk. “Now that I’ve said that, I wonder if you might hazard a guess as to my second takeaway.”

Corrie was still getting over her shock of learning Driver had been fired. It made her feel even worse about her screwup.

“Sir, I believe the other takeaway is that I still have a lot to learn.”

Sharp raised an eyebrow. “That, Corrie, is what I’d hoped to hear. Interviewing a victim—as Mr. Driver was—requires great sensitivity. It requires that you keep your personal opinions scrupulously under wraps. Now you’ve had your baptism by fire. Yes, you have a lot to learn, but you’ve also come a remarkable distance in a short time.” He hesitated, as if pondering whether to say something, and then said it, all in a rush. “You’re one of the most promising agents I’ve ever come across.”

He stood up, and Corrie quickly followed suit, stunned by this last statement, her face flushing.

“Back to work, Agent Swanson,” he said with a ghost of a smile.

24

SKIP HESITATED ATthe huge mesquite doors, then took a deep breath and knocked. Almost immediately, Edison Nash threw them open.

“’Sup, man?” he asked. “Come in!”

Skip followed him through the grand entryway and into the study, impressed all over again at the mansion and collections—owned by a guy in his mid-thirties. A couple of years older than himself—and already a billionaire. A fire was burning in the kiva fireplace, the crackle of juniper wood adding its ambience to the dying light outside. On the coffee table sat several items: a bottle of expensive reposado tequila, some limes, a dish of salt, margarita glasses, a bottle of Cointreau, a jar of simple syrup, some lime juice, a bucket of ice, and a shaker.

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