I offered a handshake. Barack turned it into a fist bump. It was a greeting I’d never been able to master, but I gave it my best shot.
Barack smirked. Just like old times.
“Thought you quit smoking,” I said.
He took another long drag off his cigarette. “I did.”
I wiped my brow. It had been an unusually hot and humid summer. In the past couple of years, I’d become more sensitive to temperature extremes. I was either too hot or too cold. Never comfortable.
“It’s been a while,” he said.
“Has it?” I asked, tracing a circle in the dirt with my foot.
“You keeping busy?”
“I’ve been laying tile in the master bath.”
Barack laughed. “If I’d known Jill was putting you to work, I’d have dropped by sooner. Michelle wants granite countertops, and I don’t even know where to start.”
“I’m sure Bradley Cooper could help.”
“You saw those pictures, huh?”
“Everybody saw them.”
“Well, you know me. Laying low was never my style.”
I grunted a response.
He put out his cigarette on a tree. “I’m sure Jill’s waiting, so I’ll get right to the point.” He returned the extinguished butt to his pack of Marlboros. Even when he was smoking, he was still a Boy Scout. “There’s been an incident I think you should know about.”
Of course. Now it all made sense. Barack wasn’t here to rekindle our friendship. He was here on business.
“An incident,” I repeated.
“Does the name Finn Donnelly ring any bells?”
Of course it did. Anybody who rode the Wilmington to DC line knew Finn Donnelly. “He’s an Amtrak conductor,” I said. “The finest one I know.”
“He was hit by a train this morning. I’m sorry, Joe.”
The news struck me in the chest like an open-field tackle. I tried to speak, but the words caught in my throat. Barack said something else, but I’d stopped hearing him.
There was a time I’d seen Finn every day. Back when I was commuting to and from the Senate. We’d traveled thousands of miles together. After I became vice president, riding Amtrak was too challenging—too many Secret Service agents and security protocols. I’d only seen Finn once since the election, in passing. I’d spent the last few weeks thinking I ought to reach out to him, maybe try to catch up, but now…
Barack put a hand on my shoulder, steadying me. “I had a hunch you knew him. I wanted to tell you myself, before you heard from somewhere else.”
He told me everything the Wilmington PD had learned about the accident. Finn hadn’t reported for work in the morning, and by the time a replacement conductor was found, the 7:46 a.m. Acela was a half hour behind schedule. While rounding a corner on the way out of town, the engineer spotted somebody lying on the tracks. At the speed the train was going, there was no safe way to avoid a collision.
“Why didn’t he move?” I asked.
“Could be he suffered a heart attack, or some other medical emergency. The state medical examiner couldn’t tell, based on the condition of the body. They’re running some blood samples. It’s going to take time before we know more.”
It was unbelievable. Preposterous. I’d known Finn better than most of my fellow committee members on Capitol Hill. I knew his favorite singer was Michael Jackson—even after all the hoopla, Finn stuck by his man. I knew he was a Patriots fan—through all the hoopla with them as well. I also knew Finn had a wife, and a little girl, Grace. Finn had been a decade younger than me, and close to retirement age (or what used to pass for retirement age). His girl wasn’t so little now. She was probably just starting college.
And now her father was dead.
“The police found something,” Barack said, holding out a piece of paper.
It was a full-page black-and-white printout of an online map, with a familiar address punched into the search bar. The cold steel in my waistband sent a shiver up my spine. The house I shared with my wife was identified by a little dot in the center of the page.
“Where did they find this?”
“He had a desk on the train. Wilmington PD thought maybe the guy was stalking you. They reached out to Secret Service, who explained you were not their problem anymore.”
“Not their problem,” I said with a chortle.
“In about as many words.”
“So, what, they fob it off on the FBI?”
Barack nodded. “And the FBI said it sounded like a Secret Service problem. After another back-and-forth, someone who used to work in the presidential detail reached me through one of my current agents. They thought I might have your number, I guess. I said I’d let you know myself, to see what you wanted to do. If anything.”
That was the world we lived in now. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for anything anymore. Not even inside the highest levels of government.
Especially inside the highest levels of government.
“You could have called.”
Barack shrugged. “It was a nice night for a drive.”
“You also could have rung the doorbell.”
“I was thinking about it,” he said.
“Well, let us know you’re coming next time, and we’ll have a cold beer waiting.”
I refolded the map and tried to give it back.
“That’s a copy. Keep it.”
I glanced back at the master bedroom window, where the TV was flickering. The thought that Finn would ever stalk me was beyond ludicrous. Still…“Is there any indication Finn was part of…something larger?”
Barack shook his head. “Not ISIL, if that’s what you’re asking. The Service ran him through all the databases. Not a single red flag. No recent weapons purchases.”
“Are there any reporters on this thing?”
“The accident—yes. The rest of the story—no. The police are sitting on the case until they hear from Steve.”
“Steve?”
“You passed him at the edge of the woods.”
“Secret Service,” I said. “Friendly guy.”
Barack shrugged. “He gets the job done.”
Champ trotted to my side. I scratched him behind the ears. “Who else knows about the map?”
“An engineer turned it in to the cops, so it’s passed through a couple of hands,” Barack said. “There’s a lieutenant working as the point person. Her detectives have started legwork on the case already. Plus two or three guys in the Service know. Too many people to make this thing disappear, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
That is what I had been thinking, and Barack could see it on my face.
“What about his family?” I asked.
“They’re planning the funeral. We’ve left them in the dark about everything.”
“Let’s keep it that way, at least for now,” I said. “I’m not asking for a cover-up. Just a little discretion. They don’t need this. Let them make their peace first.”
“If we hint that there’s a national security interest at stake here, we can stop it from spilling into the papers. At least until after the funeral. In the meantime…”
“Yeah?”
“You should look into getting some private security. I just walked right up to your house. Your backyard motion light was out, too.” He tossed a lightbulb to me. “You really ought to replace this with a compact fluorescent or an LED. They cost more up front but pay for themselves after just a few years.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I turned back to my house, then paused. The old bulb was, of course, from the motion light on the back porch. Of that much I was sure.
However, the socket was more than twelve feet above the porch. You couldn’t reach it without a ladder. “Wait, how did you…”
I glanced over my shoulder, but no one was there. Barack had disappeared back into the inky darkness, same as he’d come, leaving nothing behind but the stale smell of smoke.