‘Are your teeth chattering?’ Amanda asked when she called at eight the next morning.
‘I’m on the roof.’ I’d been huddled in my pea coat up there since before dawn.
‘Why are you on the roof?’
I could have said I was keeping watch for the murderer, red-headed or otherwise, that wanted me blamed for killing Marilyn Paul. Or, I could have told her I was hoping the cold autumn air would help me understand why he’d seemingly given up, or maybe brace me into seeing symmetry in the facts and events that swirled inside my head, unconnected, like confetti blown wild by a wind machine. But the truth was I’d simply awakened too early and too nervous to stay confined indoors.
So I said, ‘I’m not sure why I’m on the roof.’
‘I have an ulterior, conflicted reason to have dinner with you tonight.’
‘You don’t need an ulterior motive to suggest dinner. And as for conflicted, we’re working through the mess I made in our past. All is becoming good again,’ I said.
‘You talked to Tim.’
‘I already told you about that.’
‘But, did he help?’
‘He’s an engaging, bright, rich guy. He’ll fit fine in the senate. He read me like a book, or to term it more accurately in these wonderfully modern times, he read me like a digital mobile device. As I said, he knew I wouldn’t take his word alone so he sent me to meet with his security chief, who seemed to tell me a lot.’
‘Not so truthfully?’
‘We discussed all this. Why are you pressing me on it?’
‘I’m so close to his campaign.’
Voices sounded in her background. She spoke to them. Then to me, she said, ‘I’m already late for my third meeting in what’s to be a full day of them. The Italian Village tonight, say at seven?’
‘It’s noisy and crowded,’ I said. We’d rarely gone there before our divorce, simply because it was noisy and crowded. That mattered more now. We might be noticed there by one or more of her new, well-heeled associates. My nuzzling into the life of another big-timer, Timothy Wade, might blow up in my face, and in hers.
‘Noisy and crowded and delicious food,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you at seven.’
‘We’re being joined by others?’
She laughed. ‘My security duo, the guys who waited for my plane the other night, will be there. I owe them. They absolutely love the Italian Village.’