“I’ll be in Williamsburg on Saturday,” she then said. “Dinner, The Trellis at seven?”
I did not ask her why she was going to be in Williamsburg. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but when I parked my car in Merchant’s Square Saturday, I found my apprehensions diminishing with each step I took. It was hard to be preoccupied with murder and other acts of incivility while sipping hot apple cider in the sharp wintry air of one of my favorite places in America.
It was a low season for tourists, and there were still plenty of people about, strolling, browsing inside the restored shops, and riding past in horse-drawn carriages driven by liverymen in knee breeches and three-cornered hats. Mark and I had talked about spending a weekend in Williamsburg. We would rent one of the nineteenth-century carriage houses inside the Historic District, follow cobblestone sidewalks beneath the glow of gaslights and dine in one of the taverns, then drink wine before the fire until falling asleep in each other’s arms.
Of course, none of it had come to pass, the history of our relationship more wishes than memories. Would it ever be different from this? Recently, he had promised me on the phone that it would. But he had promised before, and so had I. He was still in Denver and I was still here.
Inside the Silversmith’s Shop, I bought a handwrought sterling silver pineapple charm and a handsome chain. Lucy would get a late Valentine’s Day present from her negligent aunt. A forage, inside the Apothecary Shop brought forth soaps for my guest room, spicy shaving cream for Fielding and Marino, and potpourri for Bertha and Rose. At five minutes before seven, I was inside The Trellis looking for Abby. When she arrived half an hour later, I was impatiently waiting at a table nestled against a planter of wandering jew.
“I’m sorry,” she said with feeling, slipping out of her coat. “I got delayed. Got here as fast as I could.”
She looked keyed up and exhausted, her eyes nervously darting about. The Trellis was doing a brisk business, people talking in low voices in the wavering shadows of candlelight. I wondered if Abby felt she had been followed.
“Have you been in Williamsburg all day?”
I asked.
She nodded.
“I don’t suppose I dare ask what you’ve been doing.”
“Research” was all she said.
“Nowhere near Camp Peary, I hope.”
I looked her in the eye.
She got my meaning very well. “You know,” she said.
The waitress arrived and then went off to the bar to get Abby a Bloody Mary.
“How did you find out?”
Abby asked, lighting a cigarette.
“A better question is how did you find out?”
“I can’t tell you that, Kay.”
Of course she couldn’t. But I knew. Pat Harvey.
“You have a source,” I said carefully. “Let me just ask you this. Why would this source want you to know? Information wasn’t passed on to you without there being motive on the source’s part.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Then why?”
“The truth is important.”
Abby stared off. “I’m also a source.”
“I see. In exchange for information, you pass on what you dig up.”
She did not respond.
“Does this include me?”
I asked.
“I’m not going to screw you, Kay. Have I ever?”
She looked hard at me.
“No,” I said sincerely. “So far, you never have.”
Her Bloody Mary was set before her, and she absently stirred it with the stalk of celery.
“All I can tell you,” I went on, “is you’re walking on dangerous ground. I don’t need to elaborate. You should realize this better than anyone. Is it worth the stress? Is your book worth the price, Abby?”
When she made no comment, I added with a sigh, “I don’t guess I’m going to change your mind, am I?”
“Have you ever gotten into something you can’t get out of?”
“I do it all the time.”
I smiled wryly. “That’s where I am now.”
“That’s where I am, too.”
“I see. And what if you’re wrong, Abby?”
“I’m not the one who can be wrong,” she replied. “Whatever the truth is about who’s committing these murders, the fact remains that the FBI and other interested agencies are acting on certain suspicions and making decisions based on them. That’s reportable. If the feds, the police, are wrong, it just adds another chapter.”