"Lemme guess. No hospital either?"
"Caren is a doctor, you know."
He shot me a look. With his body at that angle, it seemed even more lopsided than normal.
"I am so sorry I rang you. Why don't I call the airline and—"
"Ohh-h, no, buddy boy." He laughed and sat back upright, reaching for his mug. "There ain't no way I'm gonna go to that camp now, not after I've told Wings Cadal to take over. I'm gonna have to give him weeks to calm down in any case because my life is worth more than that, at least to me."
Hah. I actually scored against him. "What training topic is so horrible it's got you running for cover?"
He grimaced, finished his coffee, took the mug to the sink, and rinsed it before stowing it in the dishwasher. Civilized he might not be but at least he was housebroken. "First things first. Are you going to fall apart or have you been hurt worse in training?"
Patricia gaped at him and this time his scars had nothing to do with it.
There were all sorts of possible responses to that one, but Patty's expectant stare made them stick in my throat. Besides, the ibuprofen was working. "Something like that. Are you going to answer my question?"
"Nope. Let's pay Boston's finest a courtesy call. Ma'am, would you phone and let the detective know we're coming? Robbie, what did you say his name was?"
The image of Brother Perfect strobed across my retinas like something I never wanted to see again. "I can't remember. Something odd."
Halfway to the telephone, Patricia paused and gave me a disbelieving stare. "Stover Wingate," she said, as if the name should mean something to me.
I refrained from staring back. I didn't have a clue what that name was supposed to mean and didn't want to give her any excuse to tell me. Besides, our mutual pretending was working, too, and we were getting along fine, at least on the surface. For now, I was content to leave it that way.
Caren returned just before we left and of course she took Sherlock's ravaged appearance with a welcoming smile and not even a blink. She volunteered to stand guard over the house again. As Patty steadfastly refused to even touch the 9mm or any other weapon and was therefore useless in such a role, Sherlock and I talked her into coming with us. She offered to chauffeur, but Sherlock had rented a Camaro and vetoed her. I didn't argue; with rearview mirrors, Sherlock could detect a tail within seconds.
"What airline did you fly on?" I took off the sling once we were in the car and out of Caren's sight.
"Air Force cargo." He started the engine, listened to it for a moment, then shifted gear. "Why?"
"I just wondered how you got that bulge in your armpit past civilian airport security, that's all. Someday you're going to learn to carry something smaller than a Colt .45."
I didn't hear a sound from Patricia in the back seat.
"Yeah. Right. That's what Air Force cargo flights are for, aren't they? To take me wherever I need to go with whatever armament I want to carry? So let's discuss the aeronautical abilities of swine."
He braked, paused, then stared at me with hooded eyes. His cobra stare, we called it, a measuring and calculating stare guaranteed to hypnotize his prey, feathered or no. It even worked on those of us who were hardened to it. At that moment, it told me his difficult questions hadn't yet been asked.
"Is that nine millimeter the only weapon you have with you?"
I blinked. That question certainly wasn't difficult. I wondered when he'd get around to asking those.
"The others are still in the gun case back at my condo."
"You didn't even bring a spare mag?"
I glared at him. "This hasn't exactly been a good time for me, you know. And why won't you discuss the training camp?"
His stare didn't waver. In silence, he finally reversed out of the drive, around Caren's Volvo and Patricia's Taurus, and took us into the city. Events, personified by Sherlock, seemed to be sweeping me along, but because it was him, it didn't bother me much. Not that I'd ever tell him that.
At the new station, Sherlock showed off his military ID and his Texas license to carry, checking his heavy artillery at the door. When he pulled that massive old Gold Cup M1911A1 from his shoulder holster, Patty's eyes reached soup-plate proportions. The policeman behind the desk didn't seem much happier.
In the elevator going up, Sherlock laughed. "Did you see the look on his face? Does he think all Texans are gun-totin' outlaws, or what?"
Patty stood on the far side of the elevator and the stiffness of her expression made it clear she didn't consider the car large enough. "All the evidence does tend to confirm that theory."
His smile didn't budge. Granted, he'd withstood tougher challenges than my favorite mouse and displayed the scars to prove it. "And here I thought we were getting along fine."
Brother Perfect, a/k/a Detective Stover Wingate, waited for us outside his office, arms folded across his muscled chest. Today he wore tan Dockers and a natural-color linen shirt with button-down collar that looked too expensive to grace a cop's torso. His soft leather shoes also seemed pricey. Had he married money? Did he moonlight at something besides security guard shifts? Were his credit cards maxed out? I doubted that last, though. Wingate seemed too self-possessed to fall into the compound interest trap.
Of course, it was entirely possible he'd come into his money the same way I was coming into mine: by inheriting it.
"Detective Wingate." I didn't reach for his hand; I didn't want to give him the opportunity of making me look silly. Why I didn't trust him, the way I normally trust anyone who doesn't immediately aim a gun at me, to this day I don't know. Perhaps it was because of the niggling thought in the back of my mind that I'd seen him somewhere before, and from some insane notion that anyone in any memory of mine couldn't possibly be trusted.
He didn't reach, either. Nor did he smile. "Captain Ellandun."
"You remember my cousin, Patricia."
"I do indeed." He smiled.
"And this is my commanding officer, Colonel Robert Holmes."
Sherlock reached. And smiled. Wingate took a good look at Sherlock's face, crisscrossed with thin wispy scars across cheeks and forehead, framed at diagonal corners, top right and bottom left, with deep puckered ones, and clasped his hand. Good decision: Sherlock was not a man to irritate for silly reasons, neither before he got those scars nor after.
Perhaps I'd seen too many bad movies of police headquarters crammed full of dowdy cops and government furniture. But Wingate, with his expensive clothing and elegant voice, certainly didn't fit that image and neither did his office. Instead of the expected metal desk and grey filing cabinets, everything was oak, complete to the pen stand and lamp on the pristine desk. Two of the internal walls weren't half-glass, and they sported oak-framed art posters for Aida and Don Giovanni as performed this season by the Boston Opera, which I'd seen with Patricia. The effect was soothing, as if we visited just any office and not one belonging to a police detective, and I wondered how many suspects Wingate lulled into a false sense of security and then caught off guard. Mental note — be careful.
Two sleek oak chairs, softened by navy blue cushions on arms as well as backs and seats, waited before the desk. Sherlock and I stood aside for Patricia, then faced off momentarily over the second one. But he stood back immediately and graced the doorjamb instead, until Wingate fetched a folding metal chair from the outer room.
I understood Sherlock's unspoken message: she was my aunt; now that he had me here, this was my problem. He intended to fade into the woodwork — plenty of that available — and let me handle it.
Thanks, boss.
Wingate settled into the rolling chair behind his desk, also blue leather and oak. He gave me a moment to touch the cushion on my own chair — yes, it was leather, too — before folding his hands. He still wasn't smiling. "Captain Ellandun, it's good to see you. What can I do for you?"
"Well." Great beginning, just great; what was there about this man that put me on edge? Besides his perfection, of course? But I
didn't let myself consider that. Instead, I ran a hand through my hair and launched on the story of yesterday, beginning with the intruder in the early morning and ending with the call to Sherlock last night. Without effort, I found myself skipping over the parts the police might not like, such as our fruitless search of the house.
On my second sentence, Wingate yanked open his desk drawer and hauled out a light blue legal pad. Before my third was complete, he had his pen out of its stand and was scribbling like mad. He neither interrupted nor asked questions, just let me talk until I ran out of steam, then added a few lines of his own to the bottom and slammed the pen down atop the pad.
"Why didn't you call yesterday morning when this first started?"
He would ask. I shrugged and fought down rising combativeness. I wore fatigues to match Sherlock's, with combat boots that were at least presentable; perhaps my clothing affected me. When one has PTSD and a brain that does strange things at odd moments, one tends to wonder what causes any notion crossing that brain.
"I generally want to solve my own problems." That sounded lame, even to me, even while I said it. "I often forget there's such a thing as a chain of command that should be followed."
Wingate stared at me, glanced past me to the metal chair inhabited by my personal chain of command, the one I'd just admitted ringing for assistance, then back to me. I felt heat rise in my face.
Beside me, Patricia shifted. I shot her a glance — anything to prevent locking eyes with Wingate and escalating the tension — and received an unhappy shock.
She wasn't looking at me. She watched him. With bright and hooded eyes.
I followed her gaze and imagined Wingate as she saw him: perfectly styled wavy hair, clear brown eyes, warm skin tone, lyric voice, elegant taste—
—and Patricia watching him.
Hell. I was sitting there growing jealous of the police detective investigating my aunt's murder. Oh, I wanted a drink, no matter how early it was.
This had to stop. "Look, I'm sorry. I should have rung you. I didn't. But I'm here now. What do we do?"
He punched a button on his phone. "Margot, come get this, please." He turned back to me and I wondered if he felt the flying pheromones, too. "I'll have this typed up while you're here, then you can read and sign it for the record. I'd like a look at that house."
Margot, a trim blonde with hair just long enough to be considered female and a muscular body packed into a street cop's uniform, took the notes, glanced through them, and left again without a word.
"Where the Suburban tried to run me over, you mean?" I asked.
"Well, that, too." He produced another light blue pad and scribbled as he talked. "We found some fiber samples in Edith Hunter's car that don't belong there, but until we can compare them with the rugs and such in her home—"
"Of course," I said. "You know, she drove me around a lot."
"Then I'd like to collect samples from your home, as well." He glanced up from the pad, straight into Patricia's waiting, slightly dreamy gaze. "How about you, ma'am? Did she chauffeur you, as well?"
"Oh, no," she said, a trifle too sweetly. "Unlike some people in this family, I actually learned to drive. Besides, I live — lived with her."
"You lived with Edith Hunter?"
"She was approaching sixty." Patricia's saccharine vanished. "And widowed."
"Of course. And we'll need fingerprint samples from both of you, as well, although we found damn-all along those lines." Wingate wrote in silence for a moment, then looked up again, this time at me. "Yesterday you told me you own a number of handguns. Do you own a silencer?"
So no one in the area had reported hearing anything. "No. You know, when I went to the gallery last night, I noticed one of the streetlamps being repaired."
He was already nodding. "Shot out." He made another note. This time, when he looked back up, the glint in his eye spoke of long consideration. "Ms. Ellandun here informed me yesterday that following the war, you were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Is that true?"
I didn't give Patty the look of betrayal she deserved. "Yes. It is."
"With a diagnosed mental illness, how did you get a Class A LTC?"
I yanked my wallet from my pocket, pulled out my FID and LTC cards, both of which pre-dated my diagnosis, and tossed them atop the blue pad. "I've never been confined and never needed it. And that's the defining factor."
He stared at them, wrote down the specifics, then handed them back. His expression was neutral. "And if you ever were?"
Behind me, I heard the rustle of cotton cloth against metal. "The Army might have something to say about that, Detective."
Some emotion, not quite unease but not certainty, either, invaded Wingate's careful neutrality. "I'm not certain Federal regulations would supersede in this case, Colonel Holmes."
"Possibly not," Sherlock said, his voice mild, and left it at that.
I shot a smug glance at Patricia, just as she glanced sideways at me from beneath drooping lashes. No. Under no circumstances would I play that game, not even to amuse her. All right, so Wingate was good-looking enough to irritate me and obviously successful at whatever he did. The male dominance competition I had subconsciously begun was summarily over.
"Look," I said — and I'd have said anything at that moment, just to stop her game from continuing. "Have you received the forensics report yet? Or the ballistics?"
Instantly, I knew I should have phrased that differently. I should have made it a casual, curious question. Instead it sounded remarkably like a demand, and I decided then and there I'd never visit police headquarters with Patricia ever again. Behind me, not even Sherlock's uniform moved. I didn't need to see his face to interpret that.
And Wingate treated it like a demand, with the long stare it deserved. Again I felt heat in my face.
"No." He returned the pen to its stand. "And we don't share that information with the public, in any case."
"Because I might be a suspect?" I was stupid enough to ask.
He met my stare head-on.
"Because at this point, you are a suspect."
Archive Seven
seventeen years earlier
Aunt Edith met our flight at Logan Airport. My first impression of her, in the waiting area near baggage claim and customs, was of a small, graceful woman, barely taller than myself at that age, her black hair in its old-fashioned chignon just softening into grey around her temples. The lines of her face, neither as stern as my father's nor as gentle as Uncle Preston's, nevertheless called to mind distorted images of both men, especially the active brows above the family's signature green eyes and the tautness around the mouth. I noticed that, when Father bent to kiss her cheek, she neither glanced aside nor closed her eyes, as if she didn't trust him. I found the thought vaguely satisfying; perhaps she and I did have something in common.
My father greeted, she then turned to me. "How do you do, Charles." Her voice was quiet and cultured, more nasal than I was accustomed to, and her English accent had strayed into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean somewhere.
I took the usual precaution of clearing my throat. "How do you do."
"I hope you'll enjoy your stay in Boston."
Father shifted. I glanced up in time to see a wariness in his eyes, quickly hidden. "That's not precisely the purpose of this exercise."
She didn't look at him, I noticed. "Hubert and I have never had any children, so the house may be rather quiet and boring for you. I hope you'll forgive us that."
I looked at her before answering. She didn't avoid my gaze, her own steady and unblinking. I could read neither compassion nor judgment in her expression, only acceptance, and something deep inside my soul began to thaw.
"Do you have a copy of Shakespeare?" I asked.
The very edges of her mouth relaxed and curled slightly. "Of course."
"Then I'll be fine."
Father shifted again. "You've done nothing but read and ride this week past."
This time,
neither of us looked at him. A flock of tourists filed past, a babble of Middle European voices drowning our conversation, then they were gone and the moment — a dangerous one, I suddenly realized — was past as well.
What Father didn't know wouldn't hurt us.
The whispers regarding Aunt Edith were the stuff of family legend. Somehow — and no one would even whisper about this — long before I was born, she disgraced herself so thoroughly she could not remain in Britain. Although barely of age at the time, she'd married Hubert Hunter, twenty years her senior, because (it was whispered) of all her suitors, he was the only American citizen, a tenured professor at Harvard, and therefore the only one guaranteed to take her across the ocean. And although I didn't consider it until I was older, it's also possible he was then the only one who still wanted her.
At this, our first meeting, I caught a tantalizing whiff of something wild and uncanny in the undercurrents of her level gaze that not only made me wonder if those old whispers carried some truth in their dregs, but which also called to those night-time stirrings within myself.
In the Cambridge house, all the parlor windows were open. The scent of roses flooded the room from the cut bouquet in the gleaming silver vase upon the coffee table, flowers in mixed shades of red and yellow similar to those blooming in the garden outside. It was an intoxicating aroma, like something from Titania's train, and I found myself breathing deeply to pull that something inside me. All sorts of possibilities existed in such magical surroundings, whereas the Wiltshire house smelled so empty and sterile.
Aunt Edith poured the tea; Uncle Hubert, whom I had not yet met, was lecturing at the university and would join us later. I turned from their wedding photograph, which hung aslant on the far wall beyond the sideboard, and sat on the shorter of the two white damask sofas so I could watch both my newly-met aunt, who sat on the longer one across from me, and my father, who filled in the third side in a lonely blue armchair.
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