Cold Snap

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Well, perhaps not always.

  Yet there was no doubt the massive architecture of the Republican Palace, so imposing and frightening in its heyday, took on the aspect of an oversized playground when first occupied by the Americans.

  Having Madame Mumford in his kitchen was like transplanting a heart into a man who had never had one. Meanwhile, Karen absorbed her impromptu cooking lesson like an acolyte receiving holy writ. Ari realized that, for at least a few hours, his house would be a home. He was now sorry he had invited Bristol Turnbridge. There should be no tension or controversy on a night like this. No suggestion of murder.

  "I'll get it!" Ben called out from the hallway. Ari had not heard the knock. It could only be one man, plus his wife. In one form or another, murder had arrived.

  Two hours later conviviality was triumphant, due in no small part to Madame Mumford's expertise. With so many guests packed around Ari's new dining room table, the critical mass of social interaction was unavoidable.

  Once again, Ari found himself admiring (against his will) Bristol Turnbridge. Appreciation of fine cooking was as much a talent, in Ari's eyes, as picking out the nuances in the Sistine Chapel. In the throes of gustatorial ecstasy, Turnbridge's dual-pronged fork hesitated for only a second when Rebecca mentioned that Mangioni was a policeman. After a flicker of surprise, or disappointment, the fork proceeded to Turnbridge's mouth, not in the least dissuaded by the news or the sizzling butter that encased the escargot.

  Diane found herself unable to maintain her surliness after a bite from Madame Mumford's Galette bretonne. And her eyes widened with delight as she gingerly tested the crisp confit de canard. Drawing a great deal of attention from the guests around her, she gradually began to bask in the adult environment. The last thing Ari wanted was to alienate the girl, and he was satisfied by the outcome.

  "All right, Ari, you have paid your penance," Grainger said at one point. "I'll release you from your obligation to run with the club. This meal is too heavenly..."

  Ari glanced at Ben. Had he overheard?

  "Seeing as I jog regularly in weather fine and foul, I would be honored to run with your group."

  "In other words, since you're doing it anyway?" Grainger joshed him with a nudge to the ribs. "In that case, you might want to consider our biking club. Do you realize you have a mountain bike trail practically on your doorstep?"

  "It has been many years since I rode a bicycle," Ari responded, thinking of the day he had guided Quassim down a gentle slope in al-Masbah.

  "I suspect you are quite fit, in the Hemingway way."

  "Pardon?"

  "Ernest Hemingway, one of our great writers."

  "Did he look like Gary Cooper? I believe I saw a movie..."

  "He had the Cooper flavor, I guess one could say. Hemingway was also one of our great drinkers, sadly. Someone who knew him said he was the healthiest and unhealthiest men she had ever met. Jogging and shadow-boxing one day, bedridden the next."

  This was not a direction Ari cared to take. He had been raised in a religion that forbade the drinking of alcoholic beverages. He also drank to excess. God didn't seem to care, one way or the other, although his liver might one day lodge a protest.

  "You can start out on the easier trails," said the cocky minister, making them sound like lanes for toddlers. "Just to get your balance back."

  "I'll bear that in mind," Ari answered noncommittally.

  They had retreated to the living room. Bill brought out a tray of white porcelain cups. Behind him was his wife, bearing a silver thermal coffee carafe. She was immediately battered by compliments from all directions, which she accepted with seemly diffidence. She was surprised when only half of the guests expressed a desire for coffee.

  "It would keep me up all night," Becky fretted, as though ashamed of turning down the offer.

  "I'll stick with my digestif," said Turnbridge, raising his half-empty glass of Grand Marnier. He had already downed several glassfuls (Ari was keeping track) and was several shades redder than when he had finished his supper. Ethan's former boss avoided looking at Rebecca, but that entailed turning his head in Mangioni's direction. Staring straight ahead brought him to Ari, whereupon he lowered his eyes introspectively and tapped his wife's knee like a man checking his wallet. Did he know about Ari's meeting with Bruce Turner? Did he in fact order Turner to warn him off the search for Diane's father? Was he innocent, or putting on a show of innocence? Or was he just so enamored with Madame Mumford's cooking that he was throwing caution to the wind? Ari watched as Bill refilled Turnbridge's glass. A few more of those and he might let slip a clue. He might also fall down drunk.

  Ari turned to Mangioni. "I was wondering if you could tell me about this footwear that I have seen dangling from the power lines."

  A stereophonic chuckle came from Karen and Fred.

  "Don't you have that in Italy?" Karen said, carefully reinforcing his background story.

  "Indeed we do, and in other countries as well—including France, alas. But there seems to be much more of that sort of thing here."

  Steadying his cup as Bill came through with a tray of small, delicate pastries, the police officer said: "There's all sorts of names and all sorts of meanings. 'Shoe tossing', 'shoefiti', 'shoe flinging'…. Boy Scouts do it when they leave camp. Soldiers do it when they're shipped out of a base. Then again, it can also advertise a crack house, in which case they're called 'crack tennies'. Or it can mark the boundary of a gang's territory."

  "I happened to drive past a university campus the other day and noticed quite a few dangling shoes. Is it drugs? Gangs?"

  "Kids being kids, I'd say," Mangioni said cautiously, ignoring the laughter around him, as though fearful Ari would race back to Sicily and spread stories about America's collegiate Mafiosi.

  Diane was leaning up against her mother, fiddling with some portable electronic game. Ari took note of her feet plopped on his new Pelham Blue throw pillow. But those feet sprang to action, whipping around and planting themselves on the floor, when Bill arrived with the dessert tray. She chose a finger éclair. Her eyes rolled in wonder when she bit into it. Now the real meal was about to begin! She began shuffling more desserts into the plate that Bill, with providential foresight, had provided her.

  "I am very pleased you enjoyed your meal, Deputy Marshal Karen," said Ari. This was the first time he had mentioned her occupation among his guests. Only Ben Torson, Becky Torson and Pastor Grainger knew her. Rebecca looked at her with renewed interest. Turnbridge choked on his Gran Marnier. Exactly how many cops were in the room at this moment? Ari might have informed him that he, too, had played the cop on occasion, but that would have blown his cover entirely.

  Karen glowered at him briefly. If anyone asked how she had met Ari, she would be forced to concoct a story on the cuff.

  "I don't suppose the U.S. Marshal Service gets involved in missing person cases," Rebecca asked hopefully. Diane pricked up her ears and stared at Karen.

  "Not really...I mean, not often...I've never dealt with an MP who wasn't a kid or elderly and demented." She turned to Fred. "Have you?"

  Turnbridge choked again. His wife began pounding him on the back. Ari began wondering if he would have to put in a call for an ambulance.

  "I don't know if Ari said anything to you about it, but my husband has been missing for...some time."

  "You didn't file a report with us?" Mangioni asked, startled.

  Rebecca responded with an equally startled look in his direction. Ari shifted uncomfortably. Seeing Rebecca and Mangioni talking together earlier, he had assumed the topic had already been raised. She must have been busy retracting the grievance she had made to Mangioni and Jackson when a battered Ari brought roses to her daughter.

  Becky Torson cringed when Bill Mumford lowered the dessert tray in her direction. While her husband was in Iraq, she had gorged herself on fear and food. Once he was home, the fear departed, but the weight she had gained lingered.

  "I lost a pound last wee
k. I'd like to keep it off." She smiled ruefully. "Of course, I pigged out at dinner."

  When the tray was shifted in Ben's direction, he politely waved it away.

  "Just because I can't eat it doesn't mean you can't enjoy—"

  "If you can't, I won't," said her husband.

  Ari took a Neapolitan and savored it between sips from his cognac.

  "I hate to be a pest," said Rebecca. "But it's so unlike Ethan to run off like this..."

  "He 'ran off'?" Mangioni inquired. It had been an unfortunately choice of words. There was an embarrassed silence as the guests envisioned the proverbial 'other woman'.

  "He might have," said Rebecca, flustered. "But I think I know him well enough to know he would have told me, one way or the other."

  "Except he sneaked back in the house, once, and logged into the computer," Diane chirped through custard-coated lips. "I figured out Daddy's password."

  "I'm sure Microsoft has you shortlisted as a future director," Karen quipped.

  "No, I want to be a veterinarian." She lifted her nose in Ari's direction. "So I can take care of sick cats."

  "Is Marmaduke ill?" Ari asked, unable to hide his concern.

  "No, but he will be if he keeps running off to strange places."

  Ari had thought he had reached—well, not an accommodation, but at least a truce with the girl. If so, it had expired after an indecently short interval. Nearly overcome by an impulse to shake the smirk off Diane's face, he smiled.

  "A password is a very important thing." This was Turnbridge, who was so still he might have been mimicking stone.

  "I know, that's why I only showed it to Mom and Mr. Ciminon."

  Ari tried to focus on Bristol Turnbridge, but was pestered by slicing and dicing glances from Karen.

  OK, Ari, what have you gotten yourself into, now?

  But these visual slashes were not as obtrusive as the long, the very long, look that Turnbridge directed at him. It was as if he was trying to see into Ari's soul. Ari did not think he was a very deep man, so he could not delve very deeply into others. But he was astute enough to see just below the surface. That was where the danger lay.

  "And what did you discover on Ethan Wareness's computer, Mr. Ciminon?"

  "Ari, please."

  Turnbridge's lips bunched into something resembling a lopsided grape.

  "I only stumbled across some items Ethan was researching for his current employer," Ari lied. "I don't think they would matter to you, since he no longer works for you. I didn't see any references to STS."

  Diane and her mother exchanged glances. Rebecca tapped her index finger to her lips.

  It appeared that Turnbridge's wife understood the best remedy for her husband's bad moods was to avoid them entirely. She shifted daintily to the side and took up a magazine Ari had placed on a coffee table to keep it from looking so bare: Chi.

  "Hey, what do you think you're up to?" Mangioni had twisted around to look at Ari. His tone was both pleasant and threatening. Sort of like Saddam Hussein just before he grabbed you by the testicles. "This kind of sounds like police business. Maybe you should have called us."

  "I invited you to supper," Ari said.

  "Cm'on, Ari, you trying to suborn me? That's the word they use at the Academy."

  "I would never be such a derelict," Ari asserted, then turned to see Karen giving him a full frontal glare. Perhaps this dinner had not been such a good idea.

  As if to emphasize this possibility, a loud clatter of plates drew Ari's attention to the dining room. Bill Mumford gave him a deferential and mildly accusatory nod, as if he was warning the host against tossing acid into the social stew, thus ruining the perfect culinary prelude his wife had so arduously prepared for him.

  "Mr. Ciminon has been kind enough to help me," Rebecca rose to Ari's defense. "I may have been mistaken when I thought he was going to consult with the police, but he has set my mind at rest on at least...one important matter."

  "Well, you haven't reported him missing, and his workplace hasn't reported it, or I would have seen it on the blotter." Mangioni's tone suggested the logical conclusion was that Ethan was buried in a basement or some isolated back forty.

  "You didn't invite me here as part of your 'investigation', I hope," Turnbridge said to Ari.

  "Indeed not. I would have gone over to talk to Matt Mackenzie if that was the case."

  "He's nothing," said Turnbridge with a dismissive wave. "Different department."

  "But a neighbor who might have some insight into the situation," Ari said. In fact, he never considered asking Matt about Ethan because Tracy Mackenzie had already told him everything she knew about the disappearance, which was next to nothing.

  "This is America," slurred Turnbridge, the multiple glasses of Gran Marnier coiling around his cerebral cortex, squeezing out common sense. One could only hope that his wife was the designated driver. "Neighbors don't talk to each other."

  "No?" Ari nodded at Rebecca.

  Heedlessly, Turnbridge aimed his finger at Diane. "Passwords are very dangerous things. They should not be given out frivolously."

  Diane, usually so clever, only now realized her admission was a misstep. "It wasn't frivolous. My mother asked me."

  "You don't know if it was your father who logged in. It could have been..."

  "Who?" Mangioni seemed on the verge of pulling out his notepad. Or his gun, although Ari detected no armory under his sports jacket.

  "Anyone. You really don't know what you're getting into," Turnbridge said, suddenly pleading, his gaze dancing frantically across the room. "I'm sure Ethan is fine. Just leave him alone."

  "What exactly would we be getting into?" Mangioni asked. Ari was content to let him do the questioning.

  "I don't know," Turnbridge confessed. "That's what worries me." He looked at Karen and Fred. "You're Federal. You wouldn't want anyone snooping into your business, would you?"

  "Hey, don't drag us into this," said Fred, whose call to duty did not include 'beyond'.

  "What's being Federal got to do with anything?"

  ISAF, thought Ari, working hard not to grit his teeth. Or someone working for them. But he still found it difficult to link an office in downtown Kabul to the Richmond suburbs.

  "I'm just giving that as an example," said Turnbridge defensively.

  "What kind of sample—ouch!" Diane, cut off by a pinch from her mother, threw herself back into the cushions.

  But even Diane, who had less of an idea of what was happening than anyone else in the room, could see Turnbridge was lying.

  Everyone in the room jumped when Karen snarled viciously:

  "Ari..."

  Dismayed by the angst that had entered the room like some malevolent, bloodthirsty ghost, Becky Torson smiled and said: "Awwwoooh..."

  It dawned on Karen that her social graces had lapsed badly. With a will of iron she transformed her grimace into cheer. She suddenly looked like Bozo the Clown.

  "Oh Ari, you're so sweet. All these crazy stories, just for our entertainment. You've really put yourself out. It's like Mystery Dinner Theater! Isn't it? 'Whodunit' and all that?"

  She stopped when Fred gave her a hard nudge.

  "Yes!" said Turnbridge, only moderately relieved. "Listen...Ari...could I have a private word with you?"

  "Me, too," said Mangioni.

  "Count me in," Karen snapped, then smiled sweetly.

  "Ahem."

  They turned to Pastor Grainger. Quiet and observant on a fold-out chair against the wall, everyone had forgotten about him.

  "I think I might like a word, also," he said.

  Rebecca raised her hand. "As one of the parties in question," she reasoned.

  "Hey, don't leave me out," said Ben, half-laughing. Too late, his wife made a shushing noise.

  Ari's attempt at improvising revelations from Turnbridge had exploded with catastrophic force.

  "Very well, then," he said, glancing at his watch. There was no place downstairs where private conversa
tions would not be overheard. Upstairs was out of the question. It would have exposed the bachelor-like chaos of his existence. And there would be only two places to sit: his computer chair and the mattress that served as his bed. That left the garage. Unheated, the cold would encourage briefness—though of course Ari himself would be stuck out there for the duration.

  He stood.

  "I will let you decide among you the order of your attendance."

  This drew protests from his guests, which he promptly ignored.

  He was intercepted in the passage by Madame Mumford, who gave him a hard eye.

  "Have you ruined my dinner?"

  "I'm digesting very nicely," Ari said reassuringly.

  "That isn't what I mean, Monsieur."

  "The evening is a resounding success. I hope to have many more like it."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "Here he comes, Pastor Grainger!" Ben Torson called out as Ari stepped from his car at the Reedy Creek entrance of James River Park. A group of about thirty men and women were warming up under the trees, their stretching exercises making them look like members of a corps de ballet. A few wore sweatshirts emblazoned with the Methodist Church cross, but most were tagged out in logo-free jogging outfits that ranged from the dowdy to the gaudy.

  "You sure you're ready for this?" Ben asked as he stepped up to shake Ari's hand. His concern was founded on Ari's bleary eyes and slightly wobbly demeanor.

  "I'm fine," Ari lied. "A difficult night's sleep, that's all."

  In fact, he had spent the previous evening chugging Jack Daniels as he reviewed the latest images of Iraq sent to him by CENTCOM and affiliates. Ari was not prejudiced against moral courage from a bottle. If he had had any sense, he would have kept drinking until he passed out.

  "It's only a nine-mile run today," Ben continued, "but it's over rough terrain."

  "I must have misunderstood," said Ari, studying the bucolic setting. "I was thinking..."

  He had been thinking of the running track at Baghdad University, now a cracked, weedy quarter mile of tarmac. Even now, with sectarian gunshots ranging all around them, Olympic hopefuls trained there. Ari jogged frequently, but he stuck to side roads and well-worn trails--nothing like what Ben was hinting at.