I hugged him hard.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for doing this, for not leaving it in some file somewhere, not remembering, not bothering.”
“Now, you’ll call me if you need me?” he pretty much ordered, as I opened the front door. “But you’ll keep in mind what I said and promise you won’t feel ignored.”
“I understand.”
“I’m always there if you need me. Don’t forget that. My office always knows where I am.”
I watched the black Lincoln drive off, then went into my great room and built a fire, although it wasn’t cold enough to need one. I was desperate for something warm and alive to fill the emptiness left by Senator Lord’s leaving. I read Benton’s letter again -and again and heard his voice in my mind.
I envisioned him with sleeves rolled up, veins prominent in strong forearms, his firm, elegant hands holding the silver Mont Blanc fountain pen I had given him for no special reason other than that it was precise and pure like him. Tears would not stop, and I held up the page with his engraved initials so his writing would not smear.
His penmanship and the way he expressed himself had always been deliberate and spare, and I found his words a comfort and a torment as I obsessively studied them, dissecting, excavating for one more hint of meaning or tone. At intervals, I almost believed he was cryptically telling me his death wasn’t real, was part of an intrigue, a plan, something orchestrated by the FBI, the CIA, God only knew. Then the truth.returned, bringing its hollow chill to my heart. Benton had been tortured and murdered. DNA, dental charts, personal effects had verified that the unrecognizable remains were his.
I tried to imagine how I would honor his request tonight and didn’t see how I could. It was ludicrous to think of Lucy’s flying to Richmond, Virginia, for dinner. I picked up the phone and tried to reach her anyway, because that was what Benton had asked me to do. She called me back on her .portable phone about fifteen minutes later.
“The office said you’re looking for me. What’s going on?” she said cheerfully.
“It’s hard to explain,” I began. “I wish I didn’t always have to go through your field office to get to you.”
“Me, too.”
“And I know I can’t say much . . .” I started to get upset again.
“What’s wrong?” she cut in.
“Benton wrote a letter. . .”
“We’ll talk another time.” She interrupted again, and I understood, or at least I assumed I did. Cell phones were not secure.
“Turn in right there,” Lucy said to someone. “I’m sorry,” she got back to me. “We’re making a pit stop at Los Bobos to get a shot of colada.”
“A what?”
“High-test caffeine and sugar in a shot glass.”
“Well, it’s something he wanted me to read now, on this day. He wanted you . . . Never mind. It all seems so silly.” I fought to sound as if I were held together just fine.
“Gotta go;” Lucy said to me.
“Maybe you can call later?”
“Will do;” she said in her same irritating tone.
“Who are you with?” I prolonged the conversation because I needed her voice, and I didn’t want to hang up with the echo of her sudden coolness in my ear.
“My psycho partner,” she said.
“Tell her hi.”
“She says hi,” Lucy said to her partner, Jo, who was Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA.
They. worked together on a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA, squad that had been relentlessly working a series of very vicious home invasions. Jo and Lucy’s relationship was a partnership in another way, too, but they were very discreet. I wasn’t sure ATF or DEA even knew.
“Later;” Lucy said to me, and the line went dead.
2
Richmond police captain Pete Marino and I had known each other for so long it sometimes seemed we were inside each other’s heads. So it really came as no great surprise when he called me before I had a chance to track him down.
“You sound really stopped up,” he said tome. “You got a cold?”