“I have a computer at home for my writing, and on the hard disk is a file about these couples, their strange deaths. I’ve been keeping notes for a long time, writing them into this file. The word processing package I use has an option that automatically backs up what you’re working on, and I have it set to do this every ten minutes. You know, to make sure I don’t lose anything should the power go out or something. Especially in my building – ”
“Abby,” I interrupted. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“What I’m saying is that if you go into a file on my computer, if you’re in there for ten minutes or more, not only is a backup created, but when you save the file, the date and time are recorded. Are you following me?”
“I’m not sure.”
I reached for my espresso.
“You remember when I came to see you?”
I nodded.
“I took notes when I talked to the clerk at the Seven-Eleven.”
“Yes. I remember.”
“And I talked to a number of other people, including Pat Harvey. I intended to put the notes from these interviews into the computer after I got home. But things went haywire. As you recall, I saw you on a Tuesday night and drove back here the next morning. Well, that day, Wednesday, I talked to my editor around noon, and he was suddenly uninterested, said he wanted to hold off on the Harvey-Cheney story because the paper was going to run a series over the weekend about AIDS.
“It was strange,” she went on. “The Harvey-Cheney story was hot, the Post was in one big hurry for it. Then I return from Richmond and suddenly have a new assignment?”
She paused to light a cigarette. “As it turned out, I didn’t have a free moment until Saturday, which was when I finally sat down in front of my computer to pull up this file, and there was a date and time listed after it that I didn’t understand. Friday, September twentieth, two-thirteen in the afternoon when I wasn’t even home. The file had been opened, Kay. Someone went into it, and I know it wasn’t me because I didn’t touch my computer – not even once – until that Saturday, the twenty-first, when I had some free time.”
“Perhaps the clock in your computer was off….”
She was already shaking her head. “It wasn’t. I checked.”
“How could anybody do that?”
I asked. “How could someone break into your apartment without anyone seeing them, without your knowing?”
“The FBI could.”
“Abby,” I said, exasperated.
“There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Then fill me in, please,” I said.
“Why do you think I took a leave of absence from the Post?”
“According to the New York Times, you’re writing a book.”
“And you’re assuming I already knew I was going to write this book when I was with you in Richmond.”
“It’s more than an assumption,” I said, feeling angry again.
“I wasn’t. I swear.”
Leaning forward, she added in a voice trembling with emotion, “My beat was changed. Do you understand what that means?”
I was speechless.
“The only thing worse would have been to be fired, but they couldn’t do that. There was no cause. Jesus Christ, I won an investigative reporting award last year, and all of a sudden they want to switch me over to features. Do you hear me? Features. Now, you tell me what you make of that.”
“I don’t know, Abby.”
“I don’t know, either.”
She blinked back tears. “But I have myself-respect. I know there’s something big going on, a story. And I sold it. There. Think what you want, but I’m trying to survive. I have to live and I had to get away from the paper for a while. Features. Oh, God. Kay, I’m so scared.”
“Tell me about the FBI,” I said firmly.
“I’ve already told you a lot. About the wrong turn I took, about ending up at Camp Peary, and the FBI agents coming to see me.”
“That’s not enough.”
“The jack of hearts, Kay,” she said as if she were telling me something I already knew.