by Julie Hyzy
“Sit.”
I grabbed my own fruit-topped waffle and joined her at the table.
“Ollie,” she said, gently, “I had a wonderful day out yesterday.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Really, I am,” I said. “I don’t know what-”
She shushed me with a look. “You and I both know that when this vacation comes to an end, Nana and I will be headed back to our trivial lives in Chicago.”
“Trivial?” I shook my head. “You do so much-”
“Shh,” she said with force. “My life is good, for me. But it’s… little. I’m not surrounded by the most important people in the world like you are. You see and hear and do things most of us only dream of.”
“That doesn’t make what you do unimportant.”
“True, but what you don’t seem to understand is that while I’m here, I get to share a little bit of your life. And Kap…” Her eyes went all dreamy for a moment. “He’s part of that. He’s interesting-different.” She laughed. “And sexy.”
I felt my face redden.
She laughed again and playfully tapped my hand. “All I want is to have fun,” she said. “I don’t get a lot of fun back home.”
I nodded. Regret at my attitude from the day before soured my stomach. I looked down at the uneaten waffle and changed my mind about it. “I really am sorry,” I said again.
“And you’re forgiven,” she said. “I do understand, you know. I remember when Nana went out on a couple dates.”
“Nana dated?”
As if summoned, my grandmother appeared in the doorway. “Damn right I did,” she said, sniffing the air and eyeing my plate. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you about all the ones that got away.”
“Ones?” I asked. “Plural?”
Nana lowered herself into the chair opposite mine. “You going to eat that, or you going to stare at it all morning?”
I pushed the heaping plate across the table. “For you.”
She dug in as I stood up. With a hand on my mother’s shoulder, I reached down to kiss her cheek. “Thanks, Mom.”
Much to my relief, Howard Liss was not on the morning Metro train. Not that I’d expected him to be up and about this early. Most people weren’t.
That’s why it was such a surprise to get a voicemail beep when the train came aboveground at Arlington Cemetery. My phone had been off overnight but I’d turned it back on before leaving the apartment. That meant that whoever called had done so in the past few minutes. Maybe it was Mom or Nana.
The train slowed, then stopped to load new passengers at Arlington. As a lone person boarded the car in front of the one I was in, I took the opportunity to access my message: “Olivia,” came the breathless voice. “This is Howard Liss. You must call me as soon as you get this. I’m sure your phone has a redial feature, but don’t use that one. Use my private line.” He provided the number, but I didn’t even consider writing it down. At the same time, the Metro started moving again. “This is of the utmost importance.” I heard him take a breath, before repeating: “Utmost. I know you think you should not contact me. But if I don’t hear from you by mid-morning, I will move forward to make public that relationship we discussed. I know you-”
And just like that, I lost the signal.
I swore.
The two other riders in my car looked up.
I lifted a hand in apology. “Sorry.”
One returned to his newspaper. The other leaned against the window and closed his eyes.
Just what I needed. More Howard Liss. Why on earth was he contacting me, anyway? What good could I possibly do him? “That relationship we discussed…” The creep. He was lucky I couldn’t get a signal. Otherwise I would have called him back immediately just to burst his little bubble.
The train ride to MacPherson Square took an interminably long time. I’m usually the kind of person who stews about something before issuing a retaliatory response. Tom used to call me a little volcano. By the time I made it to the street level and pulled out my phone, I’d built up such a head of steam that I could barely contain myself. Somebody had to zip this guy’s mouth shut, and I felt like just the person to do it.
I punched the redial button. He answered on the first ring. “Howard Liss.”
“This is Olivia Paras,” I said briskly. I had rehearsed a whole slew of powerful opening lines, but what came out was: “How dare you threaten me?”
He made a gurgling noise. “Oh, yes. Hello.”
I pressed the phone tight against my ear. “All you can say is ‘Hello’? After leaving me a threatening message, you can only say, ‘Hello’?”
He dropped his voice. “You weren’t supposed to call on this number.”
“Oh, yes,” I said loudly as I strode south toward the White House. “That, too. What do you think I am, some simpleton? Just because I was involved in a couple of”-I lost my intensity for a moment, thinking about my involvement in other situations-“incidents at the White House, doesn’t mean that I care to participate in your crazy schemes. And I don’t-”
“Please,” he said, interrupting me. “Can you call me back on that other number?”
What the heck was wrong with this guy? Convinced he was even more touched in the head than I’d originally assumed, I was tempted to hang up. But I couldn’t. No matter the state of his mind, this fellow held the power to mess up my life. And Tom’s career. Before I hung up, I knew I had to impart one very important piece of information.
Using the same name for Tom that Liss had when he accosted me on the train, I said, “You need to know that ‘MacKenzie’ and I are no longer involved.”
Dead silence.
“Liss?” My footsteps made soft scratches on the sidewalk as I kept up a quick pace. “Are you there?”
A click and then my phone went dead. I muttered an angry expletive as I dialed my voicemail account and listened to his message again. This time I memorized his “preferred” phone number and dialed it as soon as I terminated the call.
“Olivia?” he asked when he answered. “Thank goodness.”
“What is wrong with you?” I asked. “I have no intention of turning this into a chatty phone conversation. So just listen. The ‘relationship’ you threatened to make public is no longer an issue.”
Dead silence, again.
If this unscrupulous, unprincipled blabbermouth hung up on me a second time, I swore I would march down to the newspaper office to confront him personally. He surprised me by whispering, “Hang on one second.”
Moments later, the quiet background on his side of the connection was replaced by the sound of traffic and wind. “You there?” he asked.
“Not for long.” I wasn’t exaggerating. I’d made the trek from the station to the White House gate in record time. Anger does that for me.
A crowd lined up along the White House fence startled me for a moment, and I slowed my pace. But then I remembered what day it was. Egg Roll tickets would be handed out today and hundreds of people were already lined up-some of them having camped out overnight just for the chance to be part of Monday’s festivities. Bundled up against the morning chill, they sat in small groups-in lawn chairs, or huddled in sleeping bags on the cold sidewalk.
“Listen,” Liss said.
“No, you listen. Did you not hear what I just said about my relationship with Tom?” I clenched my eyes shut. I’d been careful not to use his first name in this conversation. Too personal. But I’d gotten so worked up with all the interruptions that I’d lost that small measure of control. I coughed and clarified. “I am no longer involved with Mr. MacKenzie.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
This man was definitely crackers. “The heck you are,” I said. “If it weren’t for you threatening to make it public-”
“That’s not what I want to talk with you about.”
I was within thirty feet of the gates. I kept my voice low to prevent eager ticket-seekers from overhearing my conversation. But most looked too
sleepy to care. “In case you didn’t understand me the other day, I have no desire to talk with you. About anything. And now that you no longer have Mr. MacKenzie to hold over my head, our conversations are finished.”
“But don’t you want to know who killed Minkus?”
I stopped walking. “Like you have that information. Give me a break. If you knew, you’d tell the world.”
“Knowing something and proving it are two completely different things. You’ve learned that, haven’t you, Olivia?” Now that he was standing outside his office building-an assumption I made based on the ambient noises and his intense desire for privacy-his voice took on a condescending air. “Wouldn’t it help you-and help your assistant Bucky-if the real guilty party were brought to light?”
“When I find out,” I said, “and I say ‘when,’ not ‘if,’ it will be through proper channels, not through some delusional journalist’s mad ravings.”
He made a noise that sounded like, “Tsk.”
“Have a good day,” I said, for lack of a better send-off.
“Wait.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Well then maybe your mother does.”
My hand tightened on the phone. “Don’t you ever-”
“She really likes that Zenobios Kapostoulos, doesn’t she?” he asked. “But I believe you know him better as Kap.”
I was stricken silent until I remembered that we’d all been in the same small group at the Minkus wake. “You are mistaken,” I said. “Yet again.” I resumed walking to the gate.
“Am I?” His voice resumed its playful arrogance. I hated it. “Then I assume your mother didn’t tell you about her dinner date last night.”
“How the hell-?” I stopped myself, took a deep breath, then continued. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to poke into my family’s life?”
“Your mother’s friend Kap is involved with Minkus’s death.”
“What?” I asked. “How?”
“Oh, so now I have your attention.” I heard him lick his lips. He must have covered the mouthpiece, because suddenly the background noises grew quiet and hollow. “I don’t know precisely. Yet.”
My mind raced as I tried to piece things together. “Kap wasn’t at the dinner Sunday. He couldn’t have done it.”
“You sure about that?”
“I’m sure he wasn’t at the dinner.”
He chuckled. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. How sure are you that he didn’t do it?”
I wasn’t. “Then why don’t you tell me how he did?”
“I can’t. But what I can tell you is that Kap isn’t working alone. And I don’t even believe that’s his real name.”
I glanced at my watch. I needed to be in the kitchen posthaste. Not standing out in the chilly morning, listening to outlandish scenarios. This moment held a peculiar sense of déjà vu.
I started toward the gate again. “I gotta go.”
“Wait,” he said, so quickly and forcefully that I stutter-stepped. “Phil Cooper.”
“What about him?”
He heaved a huge sigh. “I didn’t want to get into this right away, but I’ll tell you.”
“Then hurry up.”
“I have reason to believe that Phil Cooper committed the actual murder.”
“You just said Kap did it.”
It sounded like he licked his lips again. He’d be chapped before he knew it. Good.
“I said Kap was involved. Listen, please. The two of them are meeting today.” He started talking very quickly. “I have a source.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because another one of my sources trusts you. And through you-through your mother, to be precise-I can gain access to Kap.”
This was getting totally out of hand. I would not allow him to involve my mother. “I’m done,” I said loudly. I excused myself to make my way through the line of waiting people, then slipped my employee ID through the card reader at the gate. “Good-bye.”
“Kap and Cooper have ties to the Chinese government. They took Minkus out.” His words were tinctured with an air of desperation. “I have a source that can prove this. I know I’m right. And you’ll be reading about it in my column soon. Why not help me? You like all that attention, don’t you?”
I passed the guard in the front gatehouse, who had been watching my animated movements with a look of concern. Giving him a little wave, I said into the phone: “No, I don’t. And to be perfectly frank, I’m convinced that Liss is not more.”
Before he could say another word, I hung up.
“Sorry,” I said, stripping off my jacket and donning an apron. “I meant to get here sooner.”
Cyan waved me away with a mixing spoon. “You’re hardly late. I just got here myself.”
“What are you working on?”
She brought me up to speed on breakfast preparations. She had gotten almost everything done already-so her protestation that she’d only just arrived really didn’t ring true. I gave silent thanks for having such a reliable staff to depend on, then felt the immediate crush of disappointment when I remembered Bucky’s situation.
“Howard Liss called me this morning,” I said as I pulled an asparagus and artichoke frittata out from under the broiler. I eased it onto a serving plate and looked up just in time to see Jackson walk in.
The head waiter smiled. “Ready to go?”
“Just about.” Cyan sprinkled a little cinnamon onto the president’s French toast. He and his wife had completely different breakfast favorites. While he preferred basic fare such as scrambled eggs, hash browns, and French toast, his wife had a more adventurous palate. Today’s veggie frittata wasn’t exactly exotic, but it had been considered “unusual” the first time we served it to her. Now it was one of her favorites.
With all the recent upheavals, I thought that it would be nice to treat them to their particular comfort foods this week. I garnished the plates with fruit and edible flowers. “There you go.”
Jackson took off, plates in hand, and Cyan and I cleaned up. “Howard Liss called you?” she asked. “Why?”
I tried to summarize his ramblings as best I could, but in the end all I could say was, “The man has crazy ideas. I’m ashamed to say I stayed on the phone with him as long as I did. I should have hung up immediately.”
“You’re just too polite, Ollie.”
“And it gets me into trouble.”
Cyan laughed. “Tom wouldn’t argue with that.”
My breath caught.
Her voice lowered. “What happened?”
I shook my head and started to pull out recipes for the next day’s meals, but she stopped me with a firm hand on my arm. “Talk to me.”
“We have a hundred things to do before Easter dinner tomorrow, and before the Egg Roll on Monday.”
“And we’re ridiculously short-staffed until Bucky comes back,” she agreed. “But we can still afford a couple of minutes to talk. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s over,” I said simply. “I ended it.”
Cyan had chosen violet contact lenses today. Her purple gaze unnerved me, so I kept talking. “Tom’s job was on the line because of me. Craig Sanderson believes that pitting boyfriend against girlfriend is an effective deterrent to poking my nose into official business.”
“Sounds like it was more effective in driving a wedge between you.”
I gave an unhappy laugh. “It’s been a hell of a week.”
Cyan bit her lip, and I could tell she didn’t know what to say.
I patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
“You and Tom?”
“No. Our kitchen.” I settled myself on the stool in front of the computer screen. I needed to e-mail Brandy. “First things first. We have to arrange for getting all those eggs here. Even though we got a lot done already, we still have more to do.”
“Speaking of tons to do, we have two extra guests for lunch today.”
I clicked an open document. “It’s not on the schedule.”
“Paul called down here before you got in. I didn’t get a chance to update the file yet.”
“I’ll do it.” Hunching over the keyboard, I asked her for specifics. She dug a scribbled note out of her apron pocket and I turned to wait. “Phil Cooper and…” She shook her head. “I’m going to massacre this name. Zee… Zeno…”
“Zenobios Kapostoulos?” I stood up.
“How in the world did you know that?” Cyan stared at me.
Speechless, I replayed the tape of my conversation with Liss in my head as I paced the small area. He had been right-again. “They’re meeting with the president?” I asked. “Here? Today?”
Cyan nodded.
Liss hadn’t mentioned the president, but he had known about the two men meeting. What else was Liss right about? That Kap had been instrumental in Minkus’s death? The same guy who had taken my mother out on a date? My knees wobbled, and I eased myself back onto the stool.
Cyan, obviously shaken by my sharp reaction, kept asking, “What?” but I didn’t answer. She brought her face close to mine. “You’re scaring me, Ollie.”
I tried to put everything together, but I was coming up woefully short.
“We have Cooper’s information in our files,” Cyan said. I could tell she was trying to understand me, and when she couldn’t she tried throwing more information, hoping for a hit. “Paul says he’ll have this Zeno guy’s stuff sent down ASAP.”
“Good,” I said. “I can get a look at his dossier.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Kap,” I said. “The guy who’s dating my mother.”
“He’s coming here?”
Time was ticking and the longer we sat around talking, the worse things would get. Rather than answer her, I said, “We need help.”
She waited, frustrated dimples framing her mouth.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “But first we have to get those eggs delivered here, and we need another set of hands in the kitchen.”
“But Paul won’t let us-”
“Call Paul. See if he’ll bring Henry back. Just for a couple days.”
Cyan grinned. “Ollie, you’re a genius! I’m sure Paul will agree to that.”