Columbia is climatically charmed. Storms that were terrible tended to go around the city. During my lifetime, I could remember five snow storms. Daylight brought the realization that the storm that had hammered everything west of the city, had somehow missed Columbia. There was maybe four inches of snow on the ground and the sun was shining.
It also meant that I would be enjoying food from my favorite Columbia places. While my favorite foods were pizza, subs, and Mexican; there was a place for everything in the college-oriented city.
A knock on my door reminded me of my tentative agreement to show my team where I had grown up. A part of me hoped the house had burnt to the ground. I knew it hadn’t, at least it hadn’t last time I had checked three years ago. It was more likely that aliens had invaded and replaced most of the citizens with pod people. This was not because house fires didn’t happen, they did, more often than people wanted to admit. It was because Xavier wanted to see where I had passed my childhood. The tiny little inconvenience would ensure that the universe had preserved my home.
I climbed from bed. The digital clock told me it was almost noon. I had slept for about seven hours. The last time I had slept for that long at one time, I’d been in a medically induced coma. I’d taken the time to change into pajamas, it was a matching flannel set. The pants were purple with blue and green hearts. The top was green with blue and purple hearts. I had no idea where I had gotten such an outfit, but it was warm.
The knocking continued, becoming louder. I groaned, hoping they would hear me and stop. They didn’t, instead they began beating a rhythm on the door. It had to be Xavier.
I never used the peep holes, I was convinced that someone would shove an icepick through my eye if I did. The very idea of sticking my face against the door filled me with dread. Instead, I unlocked it and opened it fully.
Needless to say, I was not surprised to see Xavier on the other side. I was surprised by the brown bag he had in his hands. If we had been anywhere else, I would have wondered what was inside, but the white receipt taped to the bag told me I had a warm, extremely cheesy veggie sub in my very near future.
“The bag may come in,” I took it from him. “You may not.”
“Nice jammies,” Xavier came in anyway and shut the door behind him. “I’m still not used to Lucas not being here. I ordered him a sub too.”
“It is very strange,” I agreed, opening the bag and pulling out the full sized sub wrapped in foil. It was still hot to the touch. “Did you have them fly it by helicopter?”
“No, they were just hot when they showed up,” Xavier said.
“How long ago was that?” I asked.
“Three minutes, maybe four.”
“Where’s yours?” I asked.
“In the bag you snatched from me.”
I looked in the bag and saw a brownie and another foil wrapped sandwich.
“I call dibs on the top of that brownie,” I told him.
“You don’t eat brownies and why do you want just the top? Why not half of it?”
“I only like the top of the brownie and then, I only like them from Sub Shop,” I answered. “They make the tops crunchy, for lack of a better term. The inside is gooey. I don’t know how they do it. But I only like the crunchy top.”
“I guess I don’t have a choice in this, do I?”
“That would be correct,” I pulled the brownie out and peeled off the top. I put the top of the brownie on a napkin and handed the rest to Xavier. “Where’s everyone else?”
“John is still sleeping. Gabriel is on the phone, arguing with Malachi and someone of significance.”
“One of our mysterious committee bosses,” I raised an eyebrow.
“That would be my guess.”
“What are they arguing over?”
“Road conditions. It didn’t sound very interesting, so I dropped off his sub and came here instead.”
“I see,” I bit into my sub. Mayo dribbled out the side. Xavier had ordered extra. This was at least ten million calories, but it was a small price to pay. There were three types of cheese, a ton of veggies, thick mayo, and all toasted to perfection on Italian style bread. Few things made me happy, this was one of them.
“You’re smiling,” Xavier said.
“It is yummy,” I answered. “So, about the trip to my house.”
“You aren’t getting out of it. The snow disappeared around the river and we only got a couple of inches. Interstate 70 is a disaster though. Even after it was cleaned and then cleaned again, there have been three or four dozen wrecks. Gabriel thinks it’s unsafe to drive on. Malachi disagrees. I don’t know what the other person on the phone thinks.”
I nodded and wrapped my sandwich back in the foil. I grabbed my brownie top, my sandwich and my keycard and left Xavier sitting at my table. Using my foot, I knocked as gently as I could at Gabriel’s door. After a few seconds, it opened. His cell phone was still glued to his ear. I set my stuff down on his table, yanked the phone away from him and hung up.
“Uh, I was on the phone,” Gabriel gave me a look.
“I know, but it’s rude to talk on cell phones while eating at a table with others. It’s rude when there isn’t anyone else there, but it’s ruder when there is. Besides, it was Malachi and one of our eight billion bosses. The worst that can happen is that they can chew you out for your phone going dead. And Malachi can’t do that, he can only get cranky about it.”
“That was the head of the US Marshals and Malachi,” Gabriel said. “Malachi thinks he has a lead on The Butcher.”
“Do you think this is the first time Malachi has thought he had a lead on The Butcher?” I sat down and opened my sandwich again. “What’d you get?”
“It doesn’t bother you at all that you did that, does it?” Xavier sat down.
“Nope, not in the least,” I answered. Gabriel’s cell phone rang. I willed it to disappear, but it didn’t.
Gabriel answered it. He was quiet as the voice on the other end spoke. It wasn’t loud enough for me to hear, but I was sure he was getting his ass handed to him.
“It’s for you,” Gabriel handed me the phone. His face had a quizzical look. Perhaps I had pushed the boundaries a little far by hanging up on the director of the US Marshals.
“Marshal Cain,” I said taking the phone.
“I’ve heard you are eccentric, but hanging up on me while I talked to your team leader was unexpected,” the voice on the other end of the line had a Bostonian accent. It was rich and cultured, reminding me of speeches I’d heard from the Kennedy’s during high school history classes.
“Sir, it wasn’t,” I started.
“I am aware that Marshal Hendricks was not responsible for hanging up on me. Special Agent Blake informed me that you had a pet-peeve about phones during meal times,” he paused and I didn’t know whether to say something or not, so I held my tongue. “My wife has the same rule. Usually, it only applies to our children, but she has given me looks when my work phone has rang during meals. This means I understand how important you consider meal times with your team and I admire that. Since you aren’t working a case, we’ll ignore it this time. But if you ever do that while working, you can bet your ass that I will become your worst enemy.”
“Thank you, sir,” I handed the phone back quickly to Gabriel. The urge to argue that there was no way the director of the US Marshals could become my worst enemy was boiling below the surface. I had enemies. Most of them were a whole lot scarier than the director.
Gabriel said a few things and hung up the phone. He set it down between Xavier and himself. For several minutes, he said nothing. He stared at his sandwich, waiting for his own temper to settle down before jumping my case.
“You are so lucky,” Gabriel finally spoke. A wide smile appeared on his face. “And somehow, managed to keep my ass out of the sling. I’m guessing this is partially Malachi’s doing, so I’ll thank him later.”
“Good plan,” I unwrapped the sub and began eating again.
“After lunch, we head to the house where you grew up,” Xavier said.
“John isn’t feeling well, so he can stay here and sleep,” Gabriel informed me.
“Ill?” I raised an eyebrow. I had a flash of something, remembering Michael who seemed constantly on the mend from some injury or illness. Inexplicably, Michael seemed more important now that he was dead. I found myself thinking of him more often than I had when he was alive. I didn’t know how to explain this, so I ignored it.
“Sleep deprivation,” Xavier clarified. “It would appear the Secret Service kept more stable hours than us.”
I shrugged. We’d been up about thirty hours when we went head on with our Amish serial killer. It had taken us another eight to get away from the Marshals’ office in Pittsburgh and get to our hotel in Columbia. It probably did require some getting used to, unless you just didn’t really sleep much to begin with.
“I’m stuffed,” I pushed back from the table. A stray mushroom was all that remained in the foil. I debated picking it up and eating it. A mushroom was a terrible thing to waste, a mushroom with cheese stuck to it was even worse. Eating it would probably mean that my pants wouldn’t want to button. Not eating it would be wasting food. I snatched it up and tossed it into my mouth. I chewed quickly, resolved to eat it before I exploded like Mr. Creosote from The Meaning of Life.
“Then go get dressed, we have places to go,” Xavier took another bite. I was stuck. I went and got dressed.