“Where was he when he tried to break in?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“And how do you know it was Dyce?”
“How do I know?” Chaney looked taken aback and uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t know know, but I know. I mean, who else could it be? Who else even knew his file existed? We’re going on certain assumptions here, aren’t we? Do you want him to sign his name? The trap was set up to alert us when someone tried to get into Dyce’s file. I mean, we assumed it had to be Dyce, didn’t we, Becker?”
“That’s Special Agent Becker, actually,” Becker said.
The woman who had been sitting at the desk and now stood, arms folded and watching a few feet away, suppressed a giggle. Chaney glowered at her, then glowered at Becker.
“Would you like to continue?” Becker asked politely.
“That’s what I was trying to do,” said Chaney.
“Where was he when he tried to break in… He did break in, didn’t he? He was successful.”
“You didn’t tell me to stop him, just find out when he tried to do it.”
“Did he try or did he do it?”
“He did it. He read his file. I mean he ‘tried’ in the sense that he didn’t escape my detection.”
“So, where was he?”
“I have that information,” Chaney said, speaking as if his bit of gold had turned to dross.
I shouldn’t do this, Becker thought. It costs me nothing but time and annoyance to let the man do his little victory dance. Why hassle him and make him look like a jerk in front of his people? Not that I’m making him look like a jerk. He is a jerk, and they probably all know it anyway, so what do I accomplish? I satisfy a small vindictive urge. Petty, petty, Becker thought. No wonder Hatcher is district agent in charge and I never rose higher than special agent. Even the ‘special’ was no distinction since everyone was called special agent. A hangover from Hoover’s grandiosity. No ordinary agents for the Chief.
“The request for information came from an office in Waverly, Connecticut. It began as a request for rates on home owner policies; that’s how he got into the system, and from there he moved into actuarial and finally into his own files. He knew all the codes, he had no trouble.”
“So he wouldn’t know he was being watched.”
“There was no way he could detect that from his side. As far as he knows, he got away with it.”
“Do you have an address for that office in Waverly?”
“Of course. He didn’t just read his file, by the way, in case you want to know.” Chaney had turned snippy.
Becker just stared at him.
“Well, he tried to destroy the file, too.”
“Did he?”
“You can’t erase a personal file from outside the system, of course; we have safeguards on that. Either Dyce forgot or thought he’d take a fling at it anyway. He didn’t get away with it.”
A small triumph, and not one that belonged to Chaney but to the designer of the original system, but Becker let him have it anyway.
“Well done.”
“Thank you.”
“What time did this happen?”
Chaney glanced at a notebook in his hand.
“Eleven thirty-six.”
“It’s only ten o’clock now,” Becker said. “I was going to say p.m.”
“He broke in last night and you didn’t tell me until now?”
Chaney smiled involuntarily, nervously. “Actually, it was Friday night.”
“This is Monday!”
“I didn’t find out until this morning myself…”
“If you’re going to build a trap, you ought to be able to tell when you’ve caught something,” Becker said. “By now our boy has probably taken the cheese and disappeared back into the woodwork.”
Becker yanked the phone from its cradle and punched Hatcher’s number.
“You can have your desk back. Miss,” Becker said, dismissively turning his back to Chaney.
I really have to work on my people skills, he thought briefly, waiting for Hatcher to answer.
He brushed grandfather’s hair and watched the old man’s face ease into relaxation. It was one of the few times Dyce saw his beloved grandfather allow himself to relax, and it thrilled him to be the instrument of it. He used the twin brushes with alternating strokes and watched the hair straighten momentarily, then recover into the gentle waves.
“I must have an Italian in the woodpile, “grandfather would say with a wink. “I still have all my hair and all my teeth. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I can,” said Dyce, who believed everything his grandfather told him.
The old man looked at his reflection in the mirror, nodding approvingly, then smiled at the boy who stood behind him. “The Lord takes care of His own in many ways,” he said. “He even helps out with your vanity sometimes, although I don’t believe He approves of it. But He understands. ’Cause the Lord himself is vain, Roger. Did you know that?”
“Yes, grandfather.”
“You did? You did know that?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
“You certainly didn’t learn it from your father.”
“No.”
“And I don’t believe I have told you this. About the Lord being vain.”
“No, sir.”
“Then you don’t know it.” Roger shook his head, pausing for a moment with the brushes. “How many strokes is that?”
“Seventy-eight,” said Dyce, moving the brushes again.
“You mustn‘t say you know a thing if you don’t know it, Roger.”
There was never a note of threat to his grandfather’s tone. Dyce did not fear being corrected by him because a blow did not accompany the lesson.
“I won’t.”
“What you know is all you will have in this life. What you know of man and what you know of God. Now the reason I can say the Lord is vain is because of the praise He demands of us. Look at what the Bible tells us to do. Look at what the Lord commands us to do. Praise Him to the Heavens. Sing out His praises. Glory unto God. The Lord wants to hear us praising Him. Glory to God in the highest. He requires it, Roger. And, of course. He deserves it. Vanity in a man is a human failing-not a bad one, mind-but vanity in God is holy. There’s the difference. You won’t hear that in any church.”
“One hundred,” said Roger, letting the brushes fall to his sides.
“You might do a few more tonight, lamb,” grandfather said. “Considering.”
Dyce understood the special circumstances. Grandfather had worked hard all day preparing for the ceremony. He had built the box himself from lumber stripped from the loft in the barn, sewn the cloth, prepared the body. All the while tending to Dyce, feeding and dressing him and offering hug after hug as he explained all that he was doing. The boy understood that his grandfather was concerned about his state of mind, but Dyce was not feeling sorrow the way grandfather feared. He couldn’t say he was feeling much of anything except the tingling of hope. If he knew his father was dead, if he could be absolutely certain that he would never come back and that he could stay here forever with grandfather, then he knew what he would feel. But it was too soon; his father was dead too short a time to be fully believed. Dyce had simply put his emotions in abeyance; grief was not called for and hope was too painful if it were to be undone. What he felt more than anything was anticipation, as if the great event had not already happened but was yet to come. He could not have said what the great event was to be.
“Let us prepare ourselves, “grandfather said at last. He touched Dyce’s hand holding the brush. Dyce saw the brown spots on his skin, the large veins that looked swollen, close to bursting through the flesh. Grandfather
