moving from room to room, opening and closing drawers.
Sam stood up, stretched and then went over to the mantel and picked up one of the photos of Devin, the Marine. 'Remember when you enlisted?'
'Best day of my life,' I said. 'Of the seventy-five hundred subsequently, this one is near the bottom.'
'She's a complicated woman,' Sam said.
'She's a socialite with a champagne problem,' I said. Sam handed me the photo of Cricket's son. When I was a kid, I always thought of Marines as men, but those old John Wayne movies lied. Back before the war, you enlisted and the oldest guy you were likely to run into in your battalion would be twenty-five. Devin O'Connor didn't look old enough to change the oil in a car, much less drive a Bradley. When you're twenty, you think it will all last forever. And how long was forever these days? A month, the girl at the Oro told me.
I handed Sam the photo back just as Cricket was coming back down the stairs. In her hands was a stack of cards, letters, photos.
'Cricket,' I said, 'I understand: You give away a lot of money to big corporate diseases and you sleep with celebrities who give even more money and that you're very, very important and…'
Before I could continue, Cricket dropped the bundle on the coffee table and I saw that these were different kinds of photos. Men-boys-with missing arms, legs, feet, eyes were smiling up in photos. Entire families. I sifted through the letters. Some were those annoying Christmas rundowns on fancy printed paper, others were handwritten in crayon. Some were Hallmark cards that inside simply said thank you a hundred times. Pictures of babies. 'What is this?' I asked.
'The day Devin was killed,' she said, 'he was on a mission in Tikrit. He and fifteen other boys were going house to house looking for weapons. Suffice to say, they found some. Seven of those boys died, the rest suffered horrible, horrible injuries. I've been using whatever resources I have to take care of those families. Most of them have nothing, you know, just what the government gives them. So I've paid for what I can. Pyschiatric care. Car payments. Mortgages. Whatever they have asked for, I have been happy to help with. And you know what the funny thing is, Mr. Westen?'
I couldn't think of anything funny.
'They hardly ever ask. So I ask them. Every night. I send out a hundred e-mails, probably, to these poor boys and their families, and I ask what they need. And they need so much, but they so rarely feel like they should. That's what I was using that money for, Mr. Westen. That's what I have stopped doing these last few weeks. That is what I must do. Do you understand?'
'I do,' I said. I did. I really did. Cricket O'Connor smelled like a victim and that was a shame.
'I may be stupid, but I'm not evil. I'm trying to do good things. I'm trying to give someone the same opportunities my son had. I'm trying to help people. I thought this money was legitimate. I thought Dixon was legitimate.'
'Okay,' I said. 'Okay. I get it. Now, when did the drug dealers start threatening to kill you?'
'Why would you think that?'
'Experience. Intuition. The very fact that Sam has me sitting here with you in the first place when I could be at home doing sit-ups.'
Cricket looked over at Sam, who just shrugged. He looked smart in his sport coat, which probably made her think he was the brains in the operation and I was the muscle, or at least she figured Sam understood her better since he was sleeping with Veronica. 'Just after Dixon left for Afghanistan again,' she said. First, she told us, it was just a series of phone calls asking for Dixon and when she told the callers that Dixon was gone, wouldn't be back for months, that if they had a problem they should contact Long-street, the security firm he was employed by. This was met by laughter, which she found disconcerting. By the last phone call, her responses were met with simple threats upon Dixon's person. It was a few days later that she noticed the same boat circling past her property over and over again. And then, finally, the knock on her front door.
At three a.m.
When she opened the door, there were three men standing there with guns.
'Dixon told me that there might be trouble one day,' she said. 'But I didn't expect this.'
'Really,' I said. 'Pretty prescient on his part.' There was nothing about Dixon Woods, at least in Cricket's description, that made me think he was anything like a Special Forces guy. Guys like Dixon Woods, if he thought his wife was in danger, would have guys like me, or guys like Sam, waiting for the trouble and in a place to defuse it.
'He said that in his line of work, sometimes people got angry. That for my own safety, it might be important for us to assume new identities, things like that.'
'And that wasn't a red flag, Cricket?' Sam said. His voice was plenty calm because he was trying to sound sensitive, I suspect, but I also think he couldn't believe what he was hearing now, either.
'I thought it was exciting. I thought it would be an adventure. I haven't been a happy person and this offered me a release. Neither of you are women. You don't know what it feels like to be with a person who is dangerous. It's exhilarating.'
The funny thing was, I did know what she was talking about. Fiona and I had once had the very same conversation. At least Fiona knows how to handle herself. 'Who did you think you were going to be,' I said, 'Nick and Nora Charles?'
'I didn't think at all,' she said.
The men came inside, searched the house for Dixon, sat down where Sam and I were sitting at that moment and gave her a very clear ultimatum: They'd like their money back. Now. She gave them what she had on her-a few thousand dollars-and then they began taking things like jewels and furniture.
'Back up,' I said. 'When was the last time you saw Dixon?'
'It's been almost three months,' she said. 'He was in Afghanistan for a few weeks, came home and then left again.'
'Uh-huh,' I said. 'This Dixon, what's his waist size?'
'Like on a pair of pants?'
'Exactly.'
'Well,' she said, 'I'm not sure.'
You want to know how well a woman knows her husband, ask her the size of his pants. You want to know how well a woman doesn't know her husband, ask her the same question. I knew the answer to the next question, but I asked it anyway. 'Do you have a picture of him, Cricket?'
'No,' she said, 'he never allowed that. He said it was a security issue.'
'Of course he did,' I said. 'Did he ever refer to himself as a spook?' Cricket reached for her neck and I actually heard Sam give out a little groan. I took that as an affirmative. 'And how long have you been married?'
'A year.'
'And how much money did he need?' I asked.
'The last time?'
'God, yes, the last time,' I said.
'A million dollars,' she said.
'And you just cut a check?'
'He's my husband,' she said.
'And how much did the bad guys want?'
'Two million dollars,' she said.
'And you cut another check?'
'No,' she said. 'I took equity from my home. And then they came back. And then they came back again. They keep coming back asking for more and more money, or they'll kill me and kill Dixon, as soon as they find him. And now, well, now I'm going to lose everything and so will those families, Mr. Westen.'
'Okay,' I said, 'but tell me you're not doing this for Dixon, too.'
'He's my husband,' Cricket said again.
'Probably not,' I said.
And that was when the tears really came. It might have been smart to get Fiona involved in this situation ahead of time, since, when she wants to, she can provide feminine comfort and that sort of thing. But instead it was me and Sam watching this put-together woman of means break down into sobs. Sam got up and guided her