ColdScheme

by Edita Petrick

“No. Make me.”

  “Come on out before I pick the lock and you lose your allowance for the rest of your life.”

  “Go away!”

  “I’m getting a screwdriver. You won’t like it when I come through that door.”

  “Go away! I’ll come out when you go away.”

  “Fine.” My negotiating skills were fraying. “I’ll give you ten seconds and then you better be out here—with the keys.”

  I let the housekeeper pull me back into the kitchen but I was counting at the top of my voice.

  One second away from losing it, she came out.

  “Don’t even think of throwing those keys. Bring them here and give them to Mrs. Tavalho,” I said, anticipating her next move.

  She walked over to us, eyes puffy, cheeks flushed but she handed the keys to the housekeeper meekly enough—then bolted for the door.

  “Jasmine! Get back in here at once!” I sprinted after her even as the door smashed into the wall.

  I flew out, skidding across the wooden porch, trying to stop before I broke my neck. The porch was eight feet off the ground with very narrow steps. I stopped just in time to see her pitch headlong—to land in the arms of her father who was in position to make the life-saving catch.

  “Saved by the bell,” I murmured. “Nice catch,” I continued. “Jasmine, say thank you and hello to Inspector Weston. I presume he’s come to discuss work.” I heard Mrs. Tavalho behind me.

  “Is she all right? Oh, thank God!” She touched my shoulder when she saw that Jasmine was uninjured, held in the arms of one very confused man.

  “He’s a colleague,” I told her and wished her good night.

  By the time the van pulled out, father and daughter were studying each other with great interest.

  “Hi. Thanks,” Jazz said when she finished her scrutiny. “I’m Jazz. I live here. You’re from Mom’s work?”

  “Hi. I’m…Field. Yes, I’m from work.”

  “You’re her new partner?”

  “No. An old friend.”

  “Really? How old?”

  “Jasmine!” I stepped in. “Inside. Now.”

  As always, she ignored me.

  “What do you mean? You knew Mom before? How long, when?” The questions poured out of her. He didn’t get a chance to insert an answer between them.

  “Your mother wants you inside. You’d better go.” He must have sensed that it would be dangerous to prolong the interrogation.

  “You’re coming too?” She reached for his hand, not waiting for a reply.

  He raised his head and looked at me. It was our first eye contact since Jazz flew out the door.

  “I normally don’t bring my work home, however…” My voice trailed off. He had composed himself but I saw the tightness around his eyes.

  “Come on, it’s okay. I won’t bother you.” Jazz dragged him up the steps. “I’ll do my homework in the kitchen. You can talk in Mom’s office. I don’t go there.”

  He shuffled up the steps and sat down at the kitchen table, while she spilled out the contents of her knapsack. I took a deep breath, dreading what would start.

  “Math,” she said in a lilting voice. It was too cheerful to be natural. “Word problems are really hard. Our teacher won’t explain. She says we have to think independently and figure them out. That sucks. I mean how are you supposed to learn if no one explains things to you?”

  I let out my breath. I felt my rib cage creak with gratitude and went to make coffee for me—and tea for him. He took it with lemon and honey—or used to. I only stocked lemons and honey because Mrs. Tavalho liked to flavor her sponge cake with them.

  Ten minutes later, Jazz listened while he explained her math problems. He gave her pointers and clues on how to solve them.

  “I think I’ve got it,” she declared with enthusiasm I hadn’t heard in months. “Are you a policeman too?”

  I knew it was too good to last.

  “In a way, yes. I work for the FBI,” he told her.

  “No shit!”

  He laughed.

  “Did you always work for the FBI?” she pursued doggedly.

  “Ever since I graduated from college.”

  It was just as well that I hadn’t picked up the tray with the beverages. It would have landed on the counter with a crash.

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. Do you know where it is?”

  “We had to memorize the names of all the states in the third grade. What do you think?” she responded indignantly.

  “Grade school’s tough these days. Where do you go to school?”

  “Brown Elementary, ten bus stop pick-ups all over the place.”

  “You’ve always lived here?”

  “Well, sure, since I can remember.”

  “Were you born in Baltimore?”

  “No. I was born in Mexico. I don’t remember coming to Baltimore. I was a baby,” she sighed and took aim. “Mom was born at the same time I was, in Mexico, because she doesn’t remember anything before that either.”

  “That’s enough, Jazz.” I turned around. “Finish your homework, then you can watch TV or play video games, or talk with your friends on the phone. I’d also suggest cleaning your room. Mrs. Tavalho is not going to do it—for a month.”

  “I wasn’t going to flush her car keys down the drain. I like her. I was just upset.”

  “That’s fine—as long as you don’t upset others with your antics.” I picked up the tray. My hands felt numb. I headed for my home office. “Inspector, this way please.”

  “I’m only discussing work,” I said when the door closed behind him.

  “Fine. You can sit here while I talk. Thanks for remembering.” He reached for the tea and the saucer with lemon wedges.

  “There is nothing to talk about.”

  “If I sat here for a year and talked, there still would be something left to talk about,” he rumbled.

  “If you don’t want to talk about work, I’ll throw you out.”

  “Then I might as well go back out into the kitchen and continue my chat with our daughter.”

  “Field, please, don’t. I didn’t know anything about you ten years ago. That’s when it would have mattered. I married you and ten days later you left. That’s all the history I have. I don’t want to be briefed on anything.”

  “We should get our stories straight. You left.”

  “I went to my Criminal Procedures lecture and then to the library to study for my exams. You were supposed to pick me up for dinner and then we’d go home. I went home alone that day. You never came back.”

  “It’s true what I’ve told our daughter. I joined the FBI right out of college. The Smithsonian was an assignment—”

  “Field! I don’t want to talk about it. Please, leave me alone!” I headed out the door.

  Suddenly, two powerful arms entwined me from behind and lifted me off the floor. Before I could say a word, I was back on the chair. He restrained me, dragged a chair over with his foot, sat down and rested his chin on my shoulder, holding me tightly. “You won’t scream because you don’t want Jazz to come in here. I know this isn’t hurting you but you can’t move. The Smithsonian was not my first assignment but it was the first time I fell in love. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done what I did.”

  I had no choice but to listen.

  A Smithsonian art exhibit coordinator had contacted the FBI when, by accident, he peeled off a strip of fabric from one of the Asian masterpieces. It was a part of a foreign art collection that would be soon leaving the US, continuing its global tour. A paint application had blended the strip into the painting’s landscape. The other side contained writing—codes, ciphers—formulae. Someone had figured out a novel way to pass on government information, top military secrets. The FBI suspected that the Washington facilitators had to be on the inside—in the Smithsonian. Agent Weston drew the field assignment. He was placed at the Freer Gallery of Art as a security guard. The
strip of fabric had been replaced in the painting, imprinted with useless information. The exhibit was to leave for Europe in five weeks’ time. The conspirators were hard to flush out. A week before the exhibit was to leave the US, the Smithsonian art curator negotiated an extension—six additional months. The rationale was that the exhibit continued to draw huge crowds.

  I came into his life at the beginning of his assignment. The six-month extension gave him a chance to fall in love with me—and marry me because birth control methods were not foolproof and I was a statistical blip. The FBI had shifted their scrutiny from the support personnel and focused on the higher administrative officials. Apparently, that was their only mistake.

  It turned out that the bad guys were on the bottom, in security—Agent Weston’s colleagues. The day before the art exhibit was to leave the country, he was patrolling in company of three friendly guards. They had clued into his real identity. By the time he wondered why they had walked out of their patrol sector, it was too late. All the security guards had guns. The bad guys had two apiece. He was caught between them in a barrage of fire.

  He woke up, three months later, from a coma, still in the intensive care unit, under guard, at the Potomac Hospital in Washington. A week later, he received a visitor, Mr. Crossley Morgan Tavistock. The visit had set back his recovery. Two months later, he was transferred to the Mead Naval Rehabilitation Center, north of Baltimore. He spent five months in therapy. Mr. Tavistock visited him one more time, at Meade. He brought a document for him to sign—annulment papers.

  He recovered—physically—and returned to the FBI Washington office. Two months later, he received a promotion and upon his request, a reassignment to the West Coast. He spent nine years there, working on his career. Six months ago, he returned to Washington.

  “A year ago, I ran into Nellie Clarrington at an energy conference, in San Diego. She was shocked to see me. She never liked me. I can’t imagine why. When I brought up your name, she turned evasive. When I brought out my gun, her reluctance faded. She said you might still be on the East Coast, Washington, or perhaps Baltimore. It never occurred to me to ask if you were still a Tavistock,” he finished and the pressure of his arms disappeared.

  I knew he wanted to hear my side of the story but I didn’t want to give it yet. I needed time to digest what I’d heard. I had to sort things out, lay the blame where it should have always rested—on the shoulders of the Tavistock monarch.

  “Field, I don’t…” I felt his warm breath on the back of my neck and didn’t want to turn around.

  The door burst open. “Mom! Oh, sorry. I mean you’ve got to come see this thing on TV.” Jazz waved. “Come on, you’ve got to hear this. They’re putting stuff into people’s chests that makes them explode—at Hopkins!”

  Chapter Eight

  “Yes Ken, I’m watching it too,” I said into the phone, not taking my eyes off the TV.

  “It’s unfortunate that Joe and Quigley had to slug it out in public. It’s a hospital. There are always people milling about. Family members would get spooked, hearing something like that. Hell, who would let their loved one go into surgery in a hospital that conducts research in implants that can blow up. All this publicity will make the investigation that much harder but it’s out. Tomorrow, it’ll be all over the newspapers. Thanks, I’ll see you in the morning,” I finished and hung up.

  “The police phone lines must be burning,” Field commented, as the TV reporter pushed the microphone in front of another “witness”. He was a family member who had overheard shocking things as he stood in the corridor where two doctors, who ought to have controlled their tempers, hadn’t.

  “Jazz, how about giving me a break and going to bed early?” I expected an argument.

  “Sure, Mom. I know you’ve got work things to talk about. Nice to have to met you, Inspector Weston.” She stretched her hand to him. After he shook it with a grin, she left.

  I shut off the TV and sat down on the couch. Field straddled the coffee table and faced me.

  “Maybe that was Smeddin’s strategy,” he said pensively. “Olsen said that he wants the hospital administration to implement an interim security measure. He knew how most doctors would react to it. That’s why he decided to go public. It was a clever move.”

  “Their public relations office will be flooded with calls. They’ll have to implement security measures, not just post a watchdog in surgery. They’ll have to mount a campaign to reassure the public that having surgery in Hopkins is a safe proposition. This will get Joe what he wants. Still, I think he should have waited until Bourke went to see the directors. It’ll take months for Hopkins to clear their reputation. Quigley and everyone in the neurosurgery and heart surgery must be livid.”

  “It was a little drastic,” he admitted.

  “Joe must be scared. He thinks that there are more people who have been implanted. It could only have been done in a hospital environment—a research center like Hopkins.”

  “Does he suspect it’s one of the doctors?”

  “It probably is. We were going to talk to you when you got back from the IMF. We wanted to see if you’d get a different story from the one we got.” I quickly outlined what we had learned and why Joe had succumbed to stress.

  “But Dr. Martin left the IMF just over three years ago,” he said.

  “According to what Ms Sedgwick told us, he left just after Brick resigned his job. We got what was in Brick’s personnel file but all that was there was Martin’s address, which no longer exists. The apartment complex where he used to live has been demolished.”

  “Were there any personnel photographs on file?”

  “Not on Martin. I got an impression that they didn’t keep such things. You can follow up on it.”

  “You said that Martin had referred Brick to a specialist.”

  “We don’t have his name either. Joe believes that a doctor is involved. He’s probably right. I’m not sure whether Brick really suffered from tension headaches but there is a doctor connection. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

  “Four years ago, Tavistock awarded the IMF a contract to develop a new mathematical model. If Brick had worked at the IMF, it’s likely that he had something to do with it. That would explain why the IMF never delivered. Brick was probably the only one who had the expertise. When he disappeared, the project stalled.”

  “Gould said that there is a new team developing some kind of system. How many people are on it?”

  “Sixty-two but they’re not all in Baltimore. Five are at Tavistock National. The rest are dispersed throughout the country. The majority are in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. The Chairman is doing a tour of the participating banking institutions. Baltimore was his second stop. He asked me to give you a message. He said you were right. As people grow older, philosophy and emotions take over. He also said that ten years of reflections, on both sides, are enough. If you’d like to spend the next ten years listening to his apologies, he’s up to it. Are you?”

  “You saw him?” I lowered my head so he couldn’t see my expression.

  “It was our third meeting in ten years. It wasn’t as stressful as the others but just as tense. He’s not going to halt the project and won’t be blackmailed.”

  “That’s a brave declaration,” I snorted.

  “Meg, what happened on your side?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why did you go to Mexico to have the baby?”

  “They have better doctors and none of them were named Martin.”

  “What did your father do?”

  “You saw him. Why didn’t you ask him?”

  “I saw him officially, in a conference room with fifteen other banking principals. It wasn’t really the time or place to ask him about it.”

  “It’s late.” I started to rise. He reached over and pushed me back down.

  “Much like the Smithsonian job, I came here on assignment. The last thing I expected was to find you in the Baltimore police ranks. I
don’t have any right to interfere in your life but I have the right to know what happened more than ten years ago. I told you my story. I want to hear yours.”

  “You left. I was pregnant. My father thought motherhood would interfere with my studies. He had political ambitions for me. I disagreed and left to have my child where I felt comfortable.”

  “Why did you change your name?”

  “To lead as normal a life as possible—and raise my daughter.”

  “Did you ever try to find out what happened to me? As a police officer, you would have the means.”

  “No. As an FBI agent, you would have even better means. Why didn’t you look for me?”

  “When he came to see me in Mead, you father said you’d had an abortion and left the country, to work in Europe’s banking circles. He had made it clear that you didn’t want me to interfere in your life.”

  “And you believed him?’

  “Yes.”

  “For an FBI agent, Field, you’re easily convinced.”

  “He’s the chairman of a bank. It didn’t dawn on me to question him.”

  “He’s a messenger. He’ll say anything to get what he wants.”

  “I know that now. Why didn’t you ever marry again?”

  “My child and my career kept me busy. Did you remarry?”

  “I never fell in love again. There didn’t seem to be a point,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell our daughter about me?”

  “There didn’t seem to be a point.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Was I that unmemorable?”

  “You weren’t there. I don’t like to talk about ghosts.”

  He rose and turned to leave. I should have let him go but some habits are hard to break. I always see my visitors to the door. I stood up and followed.

  He stopped, hand on the door handle. He stood in profile. It was safe to look, remember and regret.

  He turned around, suddenly and unexpectedly. I had no time to avert my eyes. I don’t know what he saw on my face. He grabbed my neck and pulled me closer. His other hand rose and gripped mine. He placed it on his shoulder, pressed it down and I felt his lips brush against mine.