46.

Kirsten took a cab home late Thursday afternoon. She dragged herself up the stairs, and checked for phone messages. There was only one, from Dugan, calling to leave word that he was alive and well. She could tell he was on a high. His team had made it to the semifinals and she shouldn’t try to reach him until tomorrow evening because they’d be practicing late tonight and doing their mock trial all the next day.

It was just as well. She’d have something comforting to eat, take a bubble bath if she could stay awake long enough, and then go to bed.

She’d spent the afternoon at her gynecologist’s office. The doctor had been late and got way behind, and Kirsten sat in the waiting room reading People and Family Circle, and smiling at radiant, round-bellied women and the noisy, inquisitive toddlers it seemed they all hauled around with them.

She finally saw the doctor and was examined and answered a million questions—including telling another human being about what happened to her in Florida for the first time since Michael had come to her rescue and taken her home. She was amazed at how ordinary the whole incident sounded, telling it to a doctor she really didn’t know very well. But still … she broke into tears at the end.

Then she’d scheduled some further procedures, primarily a laparoscopy. Her doctor said they wouldn’t ordinarily go ahead with these invasive tests until after they’d ruled out the husband as being the source of the difficulty. Kirsten’s response—as far as she could remember it—had been vague and probably made no sense. She doubted the doctor believed her, but Kirsten could be hard to say no to when her mind was made up.

Then she found out the laparoscopy would be done in the hospital and was apparently a bigger deal than she had thought. At first she said she’d call back in a week or so to schedule it for a more convenient time. But the doctor—as sweet as she could be, but equally difficult to contradict—said there’d be a two-week wait anyway, and convinced her there’d never be a really convenient time. “And Kirsten,” she said, “if you’re serious about wanting to conceive…” So a date was set.

While she’d been waiting she checked in with Harvey Wilson a few times, but nothing happened to give her any excuse to run away. Her big concern, actually, wasn’t that she was taking time to do something for herself while Michael was in danger. It wasn’t even apprehension about what all these exams and tests might reveal. The main thing was guilt, because she hadn’t told Dugan about any of this and, in fact, was taking advantage of his being out of town. What kind of wife kept such secrets?

She hadn’t been getting enough sleep and the whole doctor thing exhausted her, but finally it was over and they called her a cab. When she got home she had a bowl of oatmeal and some toast. She took her bath, too, and that was wonderful. And then she fell into bed to sleep off the fatigue and the stress and, yes, the guilt.

She vowed she’d tell Dugan everything the minute he got home from Asheville. About seeing the doctor and scheduling the laparoscopy, about the pregnancy and the botched abortion in Florida, about how selfless and kind Michael had been … about everything. It was so clear now that she had been foolish not to tell him, and she knew she wouldn’t flinch this time.

*   *   *

She woke up Friday morning feeling more rested and hopeful than she had in weeks. She was hungry, too, and decided to go out for waffles and sausage. She would walk to and from the restaurant, to make it easier to convince herself that her hips were probably smaller, not larger, than they’d been before breakfast.

She went downstairs and out the door into bright sunshine. She’d persuaded the owners on the first and second floors that they should all keep the wrought-iron gate locked, which meant she had to lock it herself. So she did, and when she turned around all the hope she’d woken up with drained away, as if someone had pulled the plug.

The sidewalk was blocked by two tall, clean-cut young men in dark suits and ties, showing her their FBI credentials.

“What happened?” she managed. “What’s wrong? Is somebody—”

“You’ll have to come with us, ma’am,” the darker agent said. He took a sheet of paper from his breast pocket and waved it at her. “I have here a warrant for your arrest.”

She ignored the paper and pulled her phone from her jacket pocket.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to give that to me, ma’am,” he said.

“Yeah? Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to call my lawyer first.” She started entering the number, but the man snatched the phone from her hand.

“Sorry about this,” the other man said, as he snapped cuffs on her wrists. “I’m sure the special agents who obtained the warrant will afford you all of your rights.”

“Which agents?”

“We’re transporting you to the offices of the FBI, ma’am. Dirksen Building. Downtown.”

*   *   *

They were the same two agents who’d shown up at Kirsten’s on Sunday morning. Again the thin one did the talking, starting with, “Do you remember my telling you to keep your nose out of this investigation?”

“Am I under arrest?” she asked.

“Did they show you the warrant?”

“I want to call my lawyer.”

“You don’t need a lawyer,” he said. “We’ve conferred further, and decided not to charge you … at this time.”

“Not charge me with what?”

“Not with anything … at this time. A brief chat should be sufficient.”

“I’m not giving any statements,” she said, “or answering any questions. Not without my lawyer present.”

“I don’t need to ask you any questions. Here’s the story. Wednesday morning you learned that a man named Anthony Ernest had sequestered himself in a certain basement apartment in Chicago, with another male individual.” He waited, but when she didn’t comment he continued. “You knew this because you were continuing to pursue an investigation, contrary to the direction of an agent of the federal government—namely, myself.”

“I was looking for my uncle, not pursuing an investigation.”

“Uh-huh. So you agree you went to the building. At any rate, you came into possession of, and did not reveal, information which you knew or should have known would be useful to law enforcement authorities.” His tone was flat, as though he were reading. “Information relevant to the possible identification and apprehension of the individual or individuals responsible for a series of homicides of priests and former priests.”

She stood up. “If I’m not being charged with any crime, I’m leaving.”

“Fine,” the man said. “But criminal charges or not, actions have consequences.” He stared at her. “Maybe you considered that janitor to be just another illegal alien of Arab descent, and Anthony Ernest to be a worthless individual who’d done sick, repugnant things. But if you hadn’t withheld information, and in addition lied about what your uncle knew, and instead had acted responsibly, a serial killer might have been apprehended.”

“What?”

“And those two men might still be alive.”

*   *   *

The FBI agents had shown Kirsten the door at that point. They told her that “further interference” by her would result in charges including “obstruction of justice.” They said she’d be hearing from the State of Illinois about her PI license. They refused to tell her anything else about the deaths of Anthony Ernest and the janitor who had taken him in.

The rest of the day was a nightmare. Even Danny Wardell in Rockford wouldn’t take her calls, and she had to learn what she could from news reports. She drove up to the seminary and spoke with Michael. He’d been woken up in the middle of the night and had told the police about his finding Anthony Ernest, and about Kirsten coming to get him. He was feeling as bad as she was, blaming himself for the two deaths.

He was sure the killer must have followed him to Rogers Park, and since she was certain no one followed her, she thought so, too. But she didn’t say so. Nor did she tell him that even though in hindsight it seemed their silence may have aided the killer, she wondered if she wouldn’t do the same thing over again, given similar circumstances. She told Michael she was the one, not he, whom the FBI blamed for not telling the police where Father Ernest was hiding.

The two bodies had been discovered by the owner of the apartment building Thursday evening. He had been looking for Habi, who hadn’t shown his face all that day, despite repeated calls from tenants seeking services, tenants who then turned their ire on the owner.

According to media reports, which were sketchy, the homicide scene was a bloody one. Police verified that an Arab man had died of a gunshot wound to the head, and that the priest died of wounds “inflicted with a knife.” Reporters were speculating that the Arab had been killed quickly, to get him out of the way so that the real havoc could be worked on the priest, a known sex offender. Police, however, refused to join in that speculation or to describe more specifically the knife wounds.

Kirsten would have called Dugan, but there was no point in dragging him away from the trial competition. There was nothing he could do, other than try to convince her that she wasn’t personally responsible for the deaths of the two men … as she had tried to convince Michael.

By five-thirty she was back home. There was a phone message from the Illinois Department of Registration advising her that her private detective’s license had been placed on probationary status and giving a number she could call for further information. At least the license hadn’t been revoked … yet.

The only other call was from Dugan. “Call me,” he said, so she tried. But all she got was voice mail.