'No. Nichols in California, Hutchins in the Midwest. The polls show Hutchins inching ahead, but probably not by as much as Nichols was expecting. The Washington Post had another story this morning on that suspicious real estate deal of Nichols's, though I'm not sure if the public cares. And Nichols has begun pushing for a final debate, probably because he sees the same poll numbers we do.'
'You still think Hutchins could have cooked this shooting up?'
Havlicek only nodded. He said, 'Don't be out of touch tomorrow, not even for a moment. We don't want to blow a call from the anonymous one. I'm going to write up this autopsy stuff and put it in the paper.
I'm nervous I didn't do it today, but wanted to run it by you first, make sure you didn't have something to add or subtract. This note makes me more confident than ever that we're right, that we're onto something big. I actually called my wife before I came over. I told her I wouldn't be home until after the election. My sense is, this thing gets a lot bigger before it goes away, and we're with it all the way through, me and you.'
Samantha Stevens's recorded voice was more inviting than it had been before, and far more inviting, I should point out, than it had been in person. This time, there was a tinge of concern in her tone, as if something were wrong. And the very fact that she asked me to call her whenever I got the message, regardless of the hour, was telling enough.
I sat on my couch and wondered what she had.
It was only 10:00 P.m.' and the house felt emptier than I had expected in Baker's absence. First things first. I called Kristen, the dog sitter.
'Hey there,' I said, trying to sound charming to make up for the hour and the fact I was about to steal my dog away. 'Sorry I'm calling so late, but I kind of assumed you wanted to get rid of that no-good blond guy with the oversize ears you've been sleeping withforthe past few days. Any chance of me picking him up?'
She was typically warm. 'If you insist. I was about to head up to the store for a soda. Why don't we meet at the corner of n and Thirtieth in five minutes?'
Next, I dialed up Stevens. Ends up, she had left me her pager number, which was interesting. Even worried FBI agents don't give their home telephone numbers out to key witnesses whom they have an enormous crush on.
Okay, so I made up the part about the crush. But it wasn't one minute before the telephone rang.
'Jack, Agent Stevens,' she said.
Agent Stevens. Isn't that precious beyond words? Perhaps I'd like to be identified herein as Reporter Flynn, or Journalist Flynn for all you National Public Radio types.
In the time in which she inspired my disdain, she quickly caught her mistake. 'Samantha Stevens,' she said, this time in a surprisingly fetching tone. I was quickly over it.
'What can I do for you?' I asked.
She said, in a voice that lacked the familiarity that I was hoping for,
'I'd really like to talk about a few things on this case. Would you be available to get together tomorrow?'
I said, 'I've got a ton going on at work, obviously. Not every day presidents get shot in the middle of a campaign. Not every day reporters get shot either, thank God.'
Nothing. Not even so much as a chuckle.
'What about tomorrow evening?' she asked.
This threw me off. She urgently needed something. If I were a betting man, I would bet it wasn't me. 'That works,' I said, sounding somewhat short of decisive for no particular reason. 'How about a drink at the bar at Lespinasse, seven-thirty.'
'Good,' she said. 'I'll see you there.' She hesitated on the other end, then added, 'Jack, can we keep this meeting confidential?'
'My favorite kind of meeting,' I said.
I could see Kristen already standing on the designated corner from half a block away. Baker lay on the ground beside her, obviously exhausted by another full day of being a dog. He saw or sensed me from half a block away and pulled his face up off the curb, staring intently in my direction. I called his name softly, and he scrambled to his feet, then ran low and fast toward me, his tail wagging hard all along the way. When he got to me, he urgently ran his coarse tongue over my face in a show of thanks.
'Ahh, a boy and his dog,' Kristen said as she came upon our little reunion. 'How touching.'
I said, 'You saved me again. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this.'
I handed her a check, which she reluctantly accepted without unfolding.
'I have a hunch I may have to fly out of here again soon on very short notice. Are you around?'
'I'm always around,' she said, hesitated, then added, 'Is everything all right in the house? You getting used to it again? It seems so, well, bare in there.'
'I'm getting used to it,' I said. 'I suppose I should get used to it, seeing it is my life.'
There was silence for a moment, the two of us just standing on a lamplit street corner. After a while, she said, 'I miss Katherine.'
That thought hung there in the crisp autumn air, adorned only by the gentle rustle of dead leaves and the faraway sound of a car door slamming shut. Kristen had only gotten to know Katherine for a short time. It was all so different then. Katherine and I were squeezing in our last spurts of relaxation before the onslaught of parenthood, flying to Rome for a weekend, to a wedding of a friend in St. John, up to Boston for a party in our honor with family and friends. There seemed to be a constant buzz in our lives, the air of expectation always present, the expectation being that life would always get better, that the very best days still lay ahead.
Kristen may not have known my wife very well, but she knew her well enough, and certainly she saw all this. When she said she missed her, I knew she was sincere.
'I do too,' I replied.
We were quiet again for a moment. She said, in a tone of voice that was different, 'I saw you two once.' She stopped, then started again.
'I saw you two once when you didn't know I saw you. It was at night.
You were on M Street, probably going to eat or something. I don't know. Katherine was really pregnant, and she stopped you while you were walking. She kissed you on the street, then stared at you and you stared back at her and it was as if there wasn't anyone else in the world. I walked by and didn't say anything and you didn't see me. I didn't want to ruin the moment. But I thought, my God, how in love are they? I've thought about that moment a lot. I think about it when I see you alone, kind of struggling but not really saying anything about it. I don't know, Jack. I'm sorry for all this. And I'm sorry for bringing it up.'
I stared at her for a moment, then away from her, off into the distance. Baker had lain back down. The night was quiet, the air feeling cooler by the minute. 'Thanks,' I said, softly, and I reached out and gave her wrist a squeeze as I said goodbye.
I live near the corner of Twenty-eighth and Dumbarton Streets, in what the silver-haired grand dames of the realty circuit would call the heart of the East Village of Georgetown. Coming around Twenty-eighth, with a block and a half toward home, I noticed a large black woman sitting in a beat-up old Toyota at the curb. The car engine was turned off. The first glimpse I got of her played in my mind like a snapshot.
She seemed so out of place, just sitting there in her car as it neared eleven o'clock on a cool and lonely Tuesday night. When I spotted her, she seemed to be staring in my direction, as if looking for something, then she turned away as soon as we met eyes. It was odd.
Given what had happened at the Newseum, I knew this was stupid, returning to my house, walking the streets at night alone, pretending I was immune to danger when it was so painfully apparent in my recent history that I was not. But I had this stubborn Irish desire not to give in to the forces who were trying to intimidate me, or even kill me. That said, I was starting to feel afraid.
Halfway up the block, a man and a woman stood on the street, her leaning against a utility pole, necking.
I whispered to Baker, before we arrived within earshot of them, 'I forgot that's what men and women do.' The dog just kind of looked up at me, blankly. He was heeling tight, drawing his mood from mine. I think he assumed that men just mostly threw tennis balls, then took taxicabs to the airport.
As we passed by the couple, I saw the man look at me out of the corner of his eye. I looked away quickly and thought that that, too, was odd.
