SEVEN

“Puller!” Annie Fisher shrieked. “For Christ’s sake, Puller, it’s me!”

“Annie!” I pulled her into my arms. “My God, Annie, what are you doing here? Why are you sneaking around like this?”

She clung to me as it began to rain again, hard at first, then even harder. I grabbed her hand and turned for the door, then stopped as I saw that it was closed and realized immediately what had happened. Bursting through it, I’d flung the door open, it had bounced back and closed behind me. I didn’t even have to check to know that it was locked. And that I didn’t have a key in my pocket. Shit. I turned to Annie for the key she’d been trying to use, but she shook her head.

“I dropped it, Puller … when you came at me like that.” She looked down at the landing on which we stood. We both looked down, but the key wasn’t there. The rain was a torrent now, and by the time I found the damned thing in the flower bed next to the steps, we were both drenched.

Back in the kitchen, rainwater streaming from our hair and clothing, I repeated my question.

“I wasn’t sneaking,” she said. “I was worried about you. I tried to call, a bunch of times, but your phone isn’t working, so I came over.” She reached for a dish towel lying on the counter, mopped her face with it, handed it to me. “I thought I’d …” She shook her head. “Hell, I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to see you, I guess. I still have your key, so I decided to use it. Slip in and surprise you.”

She flipped the towel back to the counter, then moved toward me and opened her arms, put them around my neck. I kissed her forehead.

“I’m glad you did, Annie.” I shook away the thought of what I’d been expecting, then held her at arm’s length and inspected her trim body. “Did I hurt you?”

“Scared the crap out of me, especially when I realized you had no idea it was me.” She stared at the revolver I’d set on the kitchen counter. “Mostly when I saw that thing in your hand … but I’m okay now.”

I hugged her again, then kept my arm around her waist and aimed her toward the living room. “C’mon,” I said. “I’ll make you some decaf.”

In the living room we stood together, dripping all over the Turkish carpet in front of the fireplace, until I turned and headed for the bathroom.

“Take your hat and coat off,” I called over my shoulder, “shoes, too. I’ll get us some towels.” I winced as my aching bruises began to resurface, but it was surprising how much less painful they were already. I took a deep breath, very carefully, felt none of the sharp pain that would go along with broken ribs, and I was grateful for that. I had too much to do, and no time at all for bandages and recuperation.

From the bathroom I grabbed a stack of white bath towels, took them back to my off-again on-again special lady.

She sat waiting in the blue leather chair to the right of the Franklin fireplace in what I was forced to call a living room, although in the persistent circularity of a dome house it’s hard to think in terms of rooms. Annie had removed more than her topcoat, I saw, and in her ivory-colored slip she looked like a friendly cat.

“You’re soaked,” she told me. “Get your clothes off before you ruin your carpet.”

I started to, but stopped as I realized I couldn’t. That she’d see my bruises and ask questions I couldn’t answer without lying. She’d get mad, I’d get mad, and she’d go away for another couple of months. We were pathetic—we’d agreed on that for a long time now—but knowing didn’t seem to help.

“I’ll grab my bathrobe, Annie, and get the coffee started.”

She nodded, then scrubbed at her hair with a dry towel. I left for the kitchen but stopped at the bathroom again, traded my wet clothes for a dry white bathrobe, zipped into the kitchen and got the coffee started.

Back with Annie, I built a fire to dry our clothes, then fell into the chair opposite her and watched the tongues of fire turn into a blaze.

“I’ve been thinking about you, too,” I said a few moments later. “I wanted to call a couple of times, but …” The words seemed to die in the warming air.

Annie smiled. Her hazel eyes seemed sad to me, and that wasn’t a good sign. There was an argument afoot, and I had no interest in another one. As infrequently as we managed to get together anymore, it seemed pointless not to enjoy it.

“I had the feeling you needed me,” she said.

My stomach tightened as I interpreted her familiar words, another mantra from the latest of her twelve-step programs. I got up. “I’ll get the coffee,” I told her. “Why don’t you grab the hall tree from the entry. Hang your clothes next to the fire.”

In the kitchen I tried to think of a way to escape what I knew was coming. We had this particular dance down pat. She’d demand an accounting for something I’d done or hadn’t done, I would get up on my hind legs, nostrils flaring as I began to shout. That I wasn’t an addict, goddamnit … That I wasn’t led around by inner demons telling me when to hit and when to stay. That the only reason I hid my gambling from the bureau was to keep my job. Period. End of story.

Then it would be her turn, for the familiar recitation of her own struggles.

Besides the D.V.M. after Dr. Annie’s name, she was almost too proud of the A.A. that followed. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but to her my gambling made me exactly the same, just another junkie lying to feed his habit. I didn’t lie to the FBI—she claims—because I liked my job. I lied because I was addicted to the job itself, to the action it provided, the “juice” I couldn’t live without. Most of all, I lied to avoid the ordinariness I was terrified would sooner or later turn me into just another loser.

Annie was wrong, of course, and a familiar heaviness overtook me as I realized I wanted her to leave, to get out of my house before it got ugly again. I’d heard it all before, and far too often. I loved her, more or less, but I just couldn’t listen to it anymore.

I poured coffee into a couple of red mugs, took them back to Annie. She had already hung her clothes near the fire. We sat and drank in silence until she broke it.

“I waited over an hour for you today,” she told me.

“Today?” I looked at her. “You waited for me today?”

“Lunch. My birthday. Ring any bells?”

Shit. I leaned toward her. “Damn it, Annie, I forgot all about it. We had a case come apart on us, and the day just got away from me. I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry.”

“I tried to call you.”

“Like I said, I was away from my desk. Did you leave a message?”

She shook her head. I didn’t say anything. There was no point.

“I’m disappointed, Puller, that’s all I’m saying.” She sipped coffee. “Tell me it’s another woman. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that’s what I’d rather hear.”

I scratched at the two-day stubble on my chin. To get out of this I needed the truth for a change, and the truth was clearly impossible. For once I had a valid reason, but one I couldn’t use. Dr. Ann Fisher was a good woman, would have made a hell of an FBI agent, but she wasn’t one. We both worked with animals, but she didn’t need a badge and gun with hers. Annie knew the rules I had to live by, had known them from day one, but that didn’t stop her from using them against me.

“You’re wrong this time,” I told her. “You couldn’t be more wrong, but I can’t—”

“I know,” she broke in. “I know you can’t tell me what you were really up to.” She sighed. “I should know by now not even to ask.”

I breathed in and out a couple of times, then warned myself to calm down. Annie tried like hell to find a higher power she could trust, but despite her determination, she’d been up and down the twelve steps often enough to keep herself in top shape. And watching her struggle had only reinforced my contempt for the process. I’d had my fill of higher powers by the time I was ten years old. If I really were addicted to gambling, I’d find something a whole lot better than voodoo to help me kick it.

“I was working, Annie. It’s not a nine-to-five job, never has been.”

She smiled. “Let’s not fight about it. You know what I want from you. Why don’t we just leave it at that?”

But it was too late to stop the surge of resentment I didn’t want to contain.

“Look,” I told her, “it isn’t what you think. It isn’t anything like that.”

Christ almighty, it was like listening to Pastor Monk all over again. Suddenly I was ten years old, trying to defend myself against his omnipotent claptrap.

“Damn it, Annie, I’m not about to explain anything to you. If you don’t like it, you know where the door is.”

To my amazement, she caved immediately. Just as I was ready to do some serious shouting, she was smiling broadly.

“Hold on, Puller. I’m not here to fight with you. I come in peace.” Without warning, her grin turned wicked. “Actually, what I come in is lust.”

My face got warm. Lust worked just fine for me, too, but not just now, not with the bruises already purpling my torso. I searched for an excuse she’d buy, but didn’t even have to come up with one before the doorbell rang. I turned and stared at the front door. Annie showing up was one thing, but who else would be ringing my bell at this hour?

“Expecting company?” Annie said. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Don’t be silly.”

I rose and tightened the cinch around my bathrobe. I went to the door, looked through the peephole. Distorted by the fish-eye lens, Lisa Sands’s nose was huge, her eyes slanting backward. Rain obscured her face, and water cascaded from the brim of her cowboy-style leather hat directly onto her shoulders, then down the front of her tan raincoat. I flung the door open and pulled her in.

“What the hell?” I said to her, then called to Annie in a louder voice, “It’s Lisa Sands.”

“It’s who?”

“Lisa Sands,” I said. “One of the agents on my squad.”

Lisa stepped toward me without a word and threw her arms around me, squeezed me hard enough to make me groan. I could smell her hair, the wildflower shampoo. I hugged her back, and we held on to each other for a long moment before she pulled away.

“Thank God,” she said. “Thank God, you’re okay.”

“How did you know? About Abahd, I mean, about what happened out in Cheverly.”

“The office patched a call through to me at home about eight o’clock, from a Lieutenant Barra. He told me what happened and wanted to know why your phone has been busy all night. I’ve been calling here ever since.”

“I took the phone off the hook. What did Barra want?”

Before she could answer, Annie called from the living room.

“Bring her in here, Puller. She has to be ready for coffee and a warm fire.”

I glanced at Lisa, shook my head. “Probably not the best idea,” I whispered, “not right now anyway.”

Suddenly Annie was next to us. In her bare feet and rumpled slip, her shaggy blond hair, she looked like something out of a Tennessee Williams play.

“Ann Fisher,” she said, her hand extended to Lisa. “Take off your raincoat and join us.”

“Doctor Ann Fisher, Lisa,” I said. “She’s a veterinarian here in Fredericksburg … and an old friend.”

Lisa glanced at Annie, then at my bathrobe. She smiled and I realized what I’d said hadn’t really covered the situation. English is the world’s most complete language, but even English doesn’t provide a polite way of saying ex-lover, sometime lover, failed lover, unable-to-get-over-each-other lover. So I did the man thing, rubbed my hands together, cleared my throat, and let Annie take over.

“We’re at the fireplace,” she said.

She took Lisa’s arm and guided her back into the semicircular living room, to the semicircular leather couch that matched the chairs and completed the grouping in front of the fireplace.

“Sit, please. You can add your raincoat to our clothes on the hall tree.”

Lisa shrugged out of her raincoat, handed it to me to hang up by the fire. Her jeans accentuated the length of her legs and the gray turtleneck sweater was tight enough to remind me to quit staring.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Lisa said. “I tried to call.”

“Didn’t we all,” Annie said, “but you’re not intruding. I came unannounced myself.” She pointed at her clothes next to the fire. “Got so wet on the way in, I thought I was going to drown.” She smiled. “Actually, I’m the one who’s imposing, I think. Surely you didn’t come out to Fredericksburg at this time of night just for a cup of coffee.”

“No, I guess I didn’t, but I still should have called.”

“Must be an important case.” Annie glanced at me. “Puller’s squad does background investigations, he tells me. I wouldn’t think you’d have such things as emergencies.”

“Normally we wouldn’t,” Lisa told her, “but it’s different with SPIN cases.”

Annie looked at me for a translation.

“Special Inquiries,” I told her. “S-P-I-N. For the White House.”

“Secrets,” she said, drawing the word out. “Where the bodies are buried, which closets hold the skeletons.”

Lisa chuckled. “Not many, I’m sorry to say … bodies or skeletons. Mostly routine, I’m afraid.” She sat forward. “I’m a lot more interested in what you do. Like every little girl, I was sure I would grow up and take care of animals. Then I did grow up and discovered two things. Men, for one, and the impossibility of getting into vet school. Law school was easier, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I was careful to leave some time for men as well, but thanks for the compliment.” She picked up her coffee, sipped, set the mug down. “Come on, you two,” she said. “Lighten up a little. One secret, that’s all I’m asking. Invent one if you have to, I’ll never know.”

“Make a note, Lisa,” I said. “Next skeleton we uncover goes straight to the doc.”

Annie held up her hand. “Okay, okay, I get the picture.” She glanced at her watch. “I better get going anyway. Got a horse on the operating table first thing in the morning. You can’t believe how hard it is to lift one that high.”

We laughed as Annie gathered her clothes, took them to the bathroom and came out a minute later ready to go. I walked her to the door, gave her a hug, a kiss on the forehead. She whispered into my ear.

“Hang on to her, Puller. Lisa’s a good one.”

She pulled away, leaving me to translate, then opened the door and disappeared into the misty gloom. I closed the door, stared at it for a moment, then rejoined Lisa at the fireplace.

“I’m sorry,” she told me again when I got there. “I really didn’t mean to interrupt, but I had no choice. Lieutenant Barra told me about Abahd, that you’d been in a hell of a fight, but I got the feeling he was more interested in what I could tell him than the other way around. He said you seemed okay when you left, but I had visions of your car crumpled up against a bridge abutment.” She shook her head. “What the hell happened? I want to hear it from you.”

I told her. Her eyes widened before she came to the same conclusion as Lieutenant Barra and the ghostly voice of Matt Drudge.

“Can’t be a coincidence,” she said. “The night you show up to see her diary, she gets killed?”

“Doesn’t sound right to me either, but consider the alternative. Even in the world of probabilities there’s a hierarchy. It might be improbable as hell—walking in on a burglary like that—but Judge Thompson having something to do with it takes us right off the chart.” I shook my head. “In this job you’ve got to go with the odds first, look into the long shots only after there’s no place else to go.”

“So where do we go, boss? Regardless how or why she died, Abahd had something bad to say about Thompson. There’s got to be a way to find out what it was.”

I glanced at the grandfather clock near the foot of my spiral staircase. Almost two A.M. I turned back to Lisa.

“Go away so we can both get some sleep,” I told her. “I have a couple of errands to run in the morning. There’ll be too many cops at Abahd’s house to start there, so meet me at her office at noon.”