‘I feel like a DVD put on pause,’ Holland said, as the Pacific Ocean came into view. They were approaching the Santa Monica Pier. The Ferris wheel was going and there were quite a number of tourists meandering about the shops and kiosks. The sun was sinking on the horizon and the soft rays made the water glitter more silvery than blue.
Wyatt nodded, but said nothing. She glanced at him periodically and noted how intrigued he seemed with the ocean and the entire tourist scene.
‘You’ve been on the West Coast before, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, but not with any conviction.
‘I mean California,’ she continued.
‘Yes, California.’
‘What about outside the United States? Where have you traveled? You’ve been overseas, right?’
He looked like he really had to think about it.
‘It’s not a trick question, Wyatt.’
‘No.’
‘No, you haven’t been out of the United States or no, it’s not a trick question?’
‘Both,’ he said finally, smiling. ‘I’ve been, as they say, totally focused. What about you?’
‘I’ve been abroad a few times,’ she said. ‘I went to Greece on a cruise with some friends. Haven’t you ever had a vacation?’
‘Days off,’ he said.
‘Days off? That’s it?’
‘That’s it,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘I guess I’m just happiest when I’m working.’
‘Everyone needs a break, Wyatt. Doesn’t it all get to you sometimes?’
‘Not any more than anything else, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I really never think that hard about it,’ he added, as if he had just realized that himself.
‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ she quipped.
‘Dull isn’t sinful,’ he replied.
Oh brother, she thought. She turned off Ocean Avenue and parked the car at a meter. They faced the boardwalk, on which they could see people on skates and people on bikes as well as people just strolling. It was a veritable menagerie of types and styles. Wyatt got out of the car quickly and went to the meter.
‘We’ve only got an hour limit on this meter,’ he called to her with obvious disappointment when she stepped out.
‘Don’t worry about it. If we want to stay longer, we’ll come back and put money in the meter.’
‘But it’s restricted to an hour,’ he said, nodding at the sign.
‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you? No one cares as long as you put money in there.’
‘Then why does the sign say one-hour parking?’
‘I choose to interpret that to mean in one hour you have to put in more money,’ she said. ‘Wyatt, you’re not the kind of person who is terrified of ripping off the label on his mattress, are you?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Never mind.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’ll keep very aware of the time. C’mon,’ she said, walking. He followed.
‘I was looking forward to going down to the water and walking on the beach a while,’ he said. He sounded like a whining five-year-old.
She stopped and turned on him. ‘So? This is not brain surgery, Wyatt. An hour is plenty of time to go down there and walk about. If we really want to stay longer, we can either drop some more coins in the meter, or if it makes you more comfortable, move to another parking spot. How’s that sound?’ she asked, as if she had to speak slowly to get him to understand.
‘Let’s just play it by ear,’ he said. ‘I mean, see how it goes.’
‘I know what play it by ear means,’ she said and walked ahead. When she reached the sand, she took off her shoes and went barefoot. She glanced at him and saw he was impressed with that and stopped to do the same, stripping off his socks as well. She waited for him to catch up. He looked like a ballet dancer standing on his toes, surprised, she was sure, at just how hot the sand could get.
‘What?’ he asked, when she remained staring at him.
‘You’re not going to tell me that you’ve never been to the beach, are you Wyatt?’
‘Well, obviously not as much as you have.’
‘Not as much as I have?’
She was sick of these careful answers. Forget Dad’s advice, she thought.
‘Who are you, Wyatt? Why are you always swallowing one pill or another? And more important, why is this investigation being conducted like some controlled experiment? Don’t wait for the translations, just answer. Well?’
‘Take it easy,’ he said. He looked out at the water for a moment, clearly deciding what to say or whether to even answer her. He turned back to her. ‘I have a particular condition that requires me to take certain medication,’ he revealed. ‘You don’t have to be concerned. It won’t affect my ability to conduct the investigation and apprehend the criminal or criminals.’
‘Apprehend the criminal or criminals? You mean, like get the bad guys?’
‘Precisely. As to the way the investigation is going, I thought you understood how sensitive all this is and why it is being conducted with great care.’
‘Sensitive is one thing. Plain stupid is another,’ she said, turning away. ‘I feel like an intern who is not yet trusted.’ She paused again. ‘Is that what you really are, Wyatt, an intern?’
‘We’re always on a learning curve, Holland. I thought you understood that as well.’
‘Yeah, right, page 103, paragraph four of the agent’s trusty manual,’ she quipped. She continued walking toward the water. A strong but warm breeze played havoc with her hair, but she ignored it. He caught up.
‘Delightful,’ he said. ‘You were right to call it an eye bath.’
She calmed down and nodded at the scene. Then a smile broke out on her face as a sequence of memories rolled across her inner replay screen.
‘Every time I walk on the sand, no matter where I am, I feel like sitting and playing with a toy pail and shovel,’ she said. She laughed. ‘My mother liked the beach, but my father preferred warm swimming pools. She used to tease him until a time once in Hawaii when she got caught in an undertow and nearly drowned. My brother and I were just old enough to understand we had nearly lost her and my father, although badly shaken, was furious at her.’
‘We came from the ocean. Some say we’ll go back,’ Wyatt said. He stared out at the water.
‘Go back? What, like walk into it and become fish again?’
‘Something like that,’ he said smiling. ‘There’s a theory that evolution will reach a crest and then begin to descend. Maybe we’re at the crest.’
‘If you watch the news every day, you might come to that conclusion,’ Holland said. She stared at him intently again. He caught her scrutiny.
‘Now what?’ he asked.
‘Sometimes you sound like a graduate-level student, Wyatt and then sometimes you remind me of a boy in the third grade. Which one are you?’
‘Both,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be true about every man?’
‘I’m not going to be the one to deny that,’ she said, ‘but I’d put more emphasis on the boy in the third grade part.’
He laughed.
They continued walking along the beach, she getting close enough for the incoming tide to just wash over her feet.
‘It’s freezing,’ she screamed and retreated.
‘Yes. I don’t know how they’re swimming out there,’ he remarked, gazing out at a group of kids splashing about in the waves.
‘When you’re that young, it’s never too cold or too hot. I never thought about weather until I was in college. You were never like that as a kid?’
‘I suppose,’ he said.
‘You suppose,’ she said, pausing again. ‘Wyatt, when it comes time to write your autobiography, are you going to use one or two pages?’
He laughed. ‘OK, OK. As you have gathered, I don’t like talking about myself very much. I’m not trying to be a snob or anything. It makes me uncomfortable, I confess.’
‘Why is it I don’t believe you?’ she asked him.
He stood there staring at her. She thought he was about to say something meaningful when his cell phone rang. He looked at the screen.
‘I guess we don’t have to worry about the meter,’ he said, reading what was written. ‘Another PJ is missing and this one has nothing to do with Halogen. You have good instincts, but I told you that if something like that occurred, we’d be told. C’mon,’ he said, starting back.
‘Where to?’
‘We’re going to Palm Beach.’
‘Palm Beach? Florida?’
‘Yes. That’s where he lived. They should borrow from the Navy recruiters when they recruit our people and say, “See the world.”’
She looked at him and then laughed.
‘I know what’s bothering me about you, Wyatt,’ she said as they walked back.
‘Oh? What could that be, pray tell?’
‘You’re like two different people sometimes, one with a sense of humor, natural, human and another…’
‘Another?’
‘Like some robotic hybrid, mechanical, efficient, too perfect and correct.’
He didn’t disagree. He kept walking.
‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,’ she said.
‘No, it’s OK,’ he said, so casually that she believed him. Then he paused. ‘I think the same thing about myself. You’re the first one, however, who’s come right out and said it to me.’
‘And?’
He shrugged. ‘We’re all complicated, Holland, some more than others.’
‘Somehow, Wyatt, I think you’re just as dissatisfied with that answer as I am,’ she said.
He blinked.
Hit the target, she thought, but she wasn’t sure she was happy she had done so.
He walked on ahead of her, his head down, pausing at the edge of the sand to put his socks and shoes on. When they reached the car, they saw a parking officer writing tickets for the cars near theirs. He looked at her and smiled.
‘You’re such a horse’s ass, Agent Ert,’ she muttered and he laughed.
They returned to the hotel to get their things, turn in the rental car, and make their flight to Palm Beach Airport. At the airport she managed to get away to a landline to call her father. He wasn’t there, but she left a message saying she was traveling to Florida and told him she would call when she was able to from there.
Throughout their journey, Wyatt continually reported information coming to them from the agency.
‘The victim was a man named Ted Brookhaven…real name. He was drowned in his own pool. Athletic man, widower with two children. Last jury sitting was only a week ago in Wisconsin, an armed robbery. The trial and deliberation lasted two days. Brookhaven’s death will make the papers, but not as a murder,’ he added. ‘It will be reported as still under investigation. It’s too soon to conclude he was murdered. They’ll have to check to see if he was drunk or on drugs, whatever. A woman he had recently met discovered him floating. She works at the Breakers Hotel and is not under any suspicion.’
‘I have no doubt he was murdered,’ Holland said. ‘And before you say it, yes, it’s instinctive. If we consider Harris Kaplan dead and gone, we have three PJs murdered, one PJ wife, a driver involved with PJs and that driver’s lover. This falls into the realm of not so coincidental. But what concerns me even more at this point, Wyatt, is why are we the only agents working this now? It looks like it’s developing into a widespread event.’
‘I don’t know that we are. We’re meeting Special Agent Matthew Letters, who is apparently leading a task force.’
‘When were you told that? And don’t tell me five minutes ago.’
‘I thought I mentioned it at LAX,’ he said and looked worried. ‘Didn’t I?’
‘No, Wyatt, you didn’t.’
He turned away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.
She saw how hard he was taking the oversight. ‘It’s all right. I’m glad someone’s rung an alarm bell.’
He nodded, but continued to look out the window and not at her.
‘Are you all right?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Wyatt?’
‘Yeah, fine. Sorry,’ he said.
When they landed at Palm Beach Airport, they hurried off the plane to meet Matthew Letters at the gate, but instead they were greeted by a group of reporters, television camera operators and photographers. At first, Holland thought there had been some movie star on the plane with them that they had been too involved in their own thoughts to notice, but the second they appeared and the cameras were turned in their direction, she knew the bottom had fallen out of whatever house of anonymity they had been inhabiting.
‘Agent Byron,’ one of the reporters shouted immediately, ‘is it true that professional jurors are being exposed, located and assassinated?’
‘Is the entire federal program in jeopardy?’ another reporter asked.
The cameras began clicking away.
She turned to Wyatt. ‘I thought you said you had been told Brookhaven’s death was not being reported as a murder?’
He didn’t respond.
And suddenly, she was worried about her father.