Page 98 of The Dead Come to Stay
MacAdams ignored her and looked instead at Burnhope. “Sophie caught Dmytro Friday morning. But she wasn’t alone, was she? You and Gerald were there, too. How convenient. But you promise to keep Dmytro out of trouble. Why would you do that? Worried we might trace all of this back to you?”
Burnhope settled his gaze on MacAdams. It was hard to read what might be going on there; when not surprised, he was very good at hiding emotion. Almost as good as MacAdams.
“Foley’s crimes have nothing to do with me, except that I’m Dmytro’s only protection. He is vulnerable,” he said, smoothing a curl behind his ear. “Artem is older; he’s a solid lad. And he’sengaged to Anje. Dmytro—he’s much more alone. I took him under wing; he needed a father figure.”
MacAdams noted that none of this answered his question, but he was willing to be patient. Just notverypatient.
“Go on,” he said flatly.
“He struggled. And his behavior had changed in the last few months.” Burnhope’s hands had been folded on the table; now they wandered, restless. “Sophie cornered him, and after he told her, they both came to tell me, his sponsor.”
“On Friday,” MacAdams repeated for the tape.
“That’s right. He admitted he’d been doing work on the side for Foley,a courier service.” Burnhope cleared his throat. “He’s not a stupid boy. He knew it was wrong, but Foley promised to get his family out of the war zone.”
“How would he do that?”
“How would I know? They were lies.”
“You have been telling lies, too,” MacAdams countered. “The meeting with Foley last Friday, that wasn’t about a promotion. You already knew what Foley was hiding in York.”
“No, Ididn’tknow about York,” Burnhope said, his brow twitching in annoyance. “I didn’t have the first clue—how would I?”
“There is a stolen artifact in Dmytro’s locker,” MacAdams said flatly. “You could have reported it. You could have had Foley arrested and put away. But you didn’t.” MacAdams tapped the tabletop, then slid forward the more gruesome of the photos. “Almost as though you knew Foley wouldn’t be a problem anymore, regardless.”
Predictably, Burnhope’s lawyer was ready to interrupt.
“You are insinuating a crime,” she said.
“No,” MacAdams countered. “I’m solving one. Tell me, Mr. Burnhope. Why the lies?”
Burnhope released his grip on the table and forced his hands back to a neutral clasp. Possibly, this was to make him appearmore at ease. It had the opposite effect of highlighting contents under pressure.
“Do youknowhow difficult it is to bring refugees into this country?” he demanded. “There’s already a stigma. People are against anyone who wasn’t born here, and you know it. Dmytro will be lucky if he’s not sent back to Ukraine. Fresh Start will be lucky if we don’t lose our certifications—”
“So you were willing to ignore felonies to save face?” MacAdams interrupted.
Burnhope did not relish being interrupted. “To savelives!” he half shouted. “To bring these people out of war—that’s what wedo.”
MacAdams let a few seconds of silence fall between them and this last exclamation. Then he leaned forward on the metal table.
“Let’s try this again. Friday. What happened at that meeting?”
For a long moment, Burnhope said nothing. MacAdams thought he might not proceed at all, and that the interview would terminate, intractable. He was already thinking through scenarios for keeping him in the interview room—even arrest, if that were possible—when he spoke.
“I didn’t know what Dmytro had stolen. I didn’t know why, and the last thing I wanted was to bring suspicion on the poor kid. I thought—maybe—there was some other explanation, and I already had a meeting with Foley.” He looked from MacAdams to the tape recorder. “I didn’t lie about that; we were discussing his promotion.”
“The promotion he’d emailed you about. The one you didn’t plan to give him.”
“We never even got so far,” Burnhope explained. “I demanded answers. He didn’t have any. Instead, he said Dmytro was a liar and a delinquent. He said they werealldelinquents.”
“And then what? You argued? It got heated?”
“No. I was angry but could barely speak. He said he was leaving the country—with a woman. I told him good riddance.”
“Was she a refugee, like Dmytro?” MacAdams asked.
Burnhope shook his head. “I don’t knowanythingabout her,” he insisted. “I got suspicious when you showed me the sketch. I hope to God she isn’t. I just wanted Foley gone, out of the business, out of our lives—out of Dmytro’s life. Hasn’t it occurred to you thatheis the one most likely to pay for Foley’s crimes? An outsider, barely an adult, a refugee?”
