“Knock-knock,” my son says with a laugh, getting the joke backward.
“Who’s there?” I repeat.
“Bemmy. Bemmy dere.” He comes flying out, uncoiling at that remarkable speed that three-year-olds of both sexes seem able to summon at an instant, sprawling cross-legged on the vast Oriental carpet, then rolling to his feet like a paratrooper who has made a perfect landing. “Bemmy dere! Dare you!”
I step deftly around the desk to hug my son, but he shoves happily free of me and tears off toward a little sitting area my father arranged under the largest of the three windows on the long side of the room. From his parents, or at least his father, Bentley has inherited a certain reckless clumsiness. So I am not entirely surprised when, looking back to see whether I am playing, my son smashes into the Judge’s chess table. The marble board lifts, then crashes back onto the glass-topped table. Nothing breaks, but the elegant box tumbles onto its side and the hand-turned pieces patter like rain against window and walls, then drop to the floor. Bentley tumbles backward, landing on his well-padded rump with a surprised grunt.
“Bemmy hurt,” my son announces in wonderment. He sheds no tears, perhaps because he possesses, already at age three, the Garland frugality with displays of emotion. “Bemmy ouch.”
“You’re okay,” I assure him, crouching for a hug he does not seem to want. “You’re just fine, sweetheart.”
“Bemmy ouch,” he reminds me. “Bemmy fine. Bemmy okay.”
“That’s right, you’re okay.”
Bentley climbs to his feet and toddles off in the direction of my father’s desk. I stoop to pick up the scattered chess pieces, setting them not in the box but in the positions from which they would begin a game. I note with irritation that two pawns are missing, one white and one black. I glance around the carpet again but see nothing. Pieces of this size are not easy to miss. I peek under the wooden chairs on either side of the chess table: still nothing.
From out in the hallway, I hear the mischievous chatter of two or three of my sister’s children, fresh from the shower, and, as Bentley rushes out to join them, my mind sparks with unreasoning anger. Why do the pawns number only fourteen instead of sixteen? The answer is infuriatingly obvious. The missing chess pieces are evidence that Mariah’s children have been frolicking in here. My sister, as usual, sets no limits on the freedom of her spoiled little brood. True, the house will soon be hers, but she might wait more than a week before letting her kids turn the room where the Judge died into a playpen-or a pigpen.
Still, having a rambunctious child of my own, I can see why the cavernous room might qualify as an attractive nuisance. Unfortunately, a collectible chess set, like the one my father used to compose his problems, is worth a good deal less with pieces missing. I assume that the missing pieces will turn up, and I catch myself wondering whether Mariah, about to inherit the house and all its contents, might be persuaded to let me have the chess set. I could even return it to the Vineyard, where my father used to work on his compositions in the good old days, sitting alone on the porch in the evening, sipping lemonade, hunched over the board-
Downstairs, the doorbell rings, and I shiver, suddenly certain that somebody has come to the house to deliver more bad news. I am already halfway out the door when Sally’s substantial voice comes blasting up from the foyer:
“Tal, there’s some men here to see you.” A pause. “They’re from the FBI.”
CHAPTER 7
“You people work fast,” I tell the two agents as we settle in the living room. I have offered them something to drink, which they have declined. I am more nervous than I want to be, but that is because I am not quite ready to talk to them; I am not quite sure how to handle some of the questions they are sure to ask about my wife. Mariah, in dark slacks and bright red socks, stands in the arched entry to the foyer, watching us carefully. Sally, wearing one of her endless supply of too-tight dresses, peeks around the corner with wide, agitated eyes.
“Just doing our job,” says the tall one, a black man named Foreman. I wonder if he is deliberately misunderstanding me.
“What I mean is, we buried my father yesterday,” I explain. “My wife told me you would be coming by soon, but I would think that this could wait.”
The two men exchange a look. The shorter man, McDermott, has an angry white face, sandy hair, and a large, unsightly birthmark on the back of his hand. He seems old for this work, sixtyish, but I am wary of stereotypes. The taller one is calm and wears glasses. His hands are in constant motion, the hands of a magician. The two agents are seated awkwardly on the cream-colored sofa, as though worried about marring it. Both wear suits far cheaper than anything the mourners who crowded into the foyer last Friday would buy. I am across from them in a creaky rocker. Somewhere in the house, I hear shrieks of joy, and I know that five Dentons, plus one Garland, are off on another destructive rampage.
“We don’t think it can,” McDermott reports, staring me down.
“Well, I think this is inappropriate. I mean, naturally, I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. But surely it doesn’t have to be done today.”
There is an odd moment of silence. I have the slightly scary sense that they know secrets they are contemplating whether to reveal. I remind myself that this is America.
“What did your wife tell you, exactly?” asks McDermott at last.
“Nothing confidential,” I assure them. “She told me that you would be coming by to interview me in connection with… well, her possible nomination.”
“That we would be coming by?” Foreman sounds amused.
“Well, that somebody from the FBI would-”
“What about her nomination?” McDermott interrupts, rudely.
Before I can answer the agent’s question, Sally surprises us all by stepping forward and putting one of her own:
“Have we met before, Agent McDermott?”
He is silent for a beat, as though sorting through the visual memories of a long and distinguished career of performing background checks.
“Not that I recall, Mrs. Stillman,” he says at last. With a twinge of dismay, I note his precision: he knows who in the family has taken whose last name, and who has not. If even a timeserver like McDermott is being this thorough, Kimmer is unlikely to succeed in hiding what she most wishes to. My wife must be longing for the old days, when Washington did not care about adultery.
Once upon a time.
I make myself relax. At least we have never hired an illegal alien, my wife has never committed sexual harassment, and we have had no more trouble with our taxes than any other two-earner professional family.
“Are you sure?” Sally persists.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says shortly, and cuts his eyes toward Foreman, who nods and stands up and walks over to Sally. An appalled Mariah is already pulling at her arm. The three of them have a whispered conversation, but it is obvious that Foreman is indicating, as gently as he can, that the agents would like to talk to me alone.
“Thank you,” Foreman calls after her as Sally stomps across the foyer, half led by Mariah and half leading her. There is no response.
“Now, then,” says McDermott, looking down at his little notebook. He has already dismissed my cousin from his thoughts. I wonder, briefly, why she decided to challenge him.
“Right,” I say, for no reason. I sit back, bewildered. There is something nudging the edge of my consciousness, something to do with Sally’s reaction, but I cannot quite get it. “Right,” I repeat, losing my place.
“You were talking about your wife’s nomination,” Foreman prompts, glancing at his puzzled partner as he
