I didn’t want to get any deeper into this neighborhood because the roads were winding and narrow and dark. There were many cul-de-sacs. I took a right on Dover and dialed Marino’s number as the car turned right, too, and my fear grew.
“Marino,” I said out loud to nobody there. “Be home, Marino.”
I ended the call and tried again.
“Marino! Goddamn it, be home!” I said to the handsfree phone in the dashboard as Marino’s clunky cordless phone inside his house rang and rang.
He probably had it parked by the TV, as usual. Half the time he couldn’t find it because he didn’t return it to its base. Maybe he wasn’t home yet.
“What?” his loud voice surprised me.
“It’s me. ”
“Goddamn-mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch. If I hit my knee on that goddamn table one more time. . . !”
“Marino, listen to me!”
“Once more and it’s out in the yard and I’m gonna smash the shit out of it with a hammer! Right in the fucking kneecap! I can’t see the fucking thing ’cause it’s glass and guess who said it would look so nice there?”
“Calm down,” I exclaimed, watching the car in my mirror.
“I’ve had three beers and I’m hungry and tired as hell. What?” he asked.
“There’s someone following me.”
I turned right on Windsor Way, heading back to Cary Street. I drove at a normal speed. I did nothing out of the ordinary except not head for my house.
“What do you mean, someone’s following you?” Marino asked.
“What the hell do you think I mean?” I said as my anxiety heated up more.
“Then head this way right now,” he said. “Get out of that dark neighborhood of yours.”
“I am.”
“Can you see a plate number or anything?”
“No. He’s too far behind me. It seems he’s deliberately staying far enough behind me so I can’t read the tag or see his face.”
I got back on the expressway, heading to the Powhite Parkway, and the person tailin$ me apparently gave up and turned off somewhere. Lights of moving cars and trucks and the iridescent paint on signs were confusing, and my heart was beating hard. The half-moon slipped in and out of clouds like a button, and gusts of wind rushed the side of the car like linebackers.
I dialed my answering service at home. I had three hangups and a fourth message that was a slap in the face.
“Chief Bray here,” it began. “So nice to run into you at Buckhead’s. I have a few policy and procedural issues to discuss with you. Managing crime scenes and evidence, and so on. I’ve been meaning to discuss them with you, Kay.”
The sound of my first name coming out of her mouth infuriated me.
“Maybe we can have lunch in the next few days,” her recorded voice went on. “A nice private lunch at the Commonwealth Club?”
My home phone number was unlisted and I was very careful who I gave it to, but it was no riddle how she’d gotten it. My staff, including Ruffin, had to be able to reach me at home.
“In case you haven’t heard,” Bray’s message went on, “Al Carson resigned today. You remember him, I’m sure? Deputy chief of investigations. A real shame. Major Inman will be acting deputy chief.”
I slowed at a toll booth and tossed a token into the bin. I moved on and a beat-up Toyota full of teenaged boys stared boldly at me as they passed. One of them mouthed motherfiucker for no apparent reason.
I concentrated on the road as I thought about what Wagner had said. Someone was pressuring Representative Connors to push legislation that would transfer my office out of Health and Human Services and into Public Safety, where the police department would have more control over me.
Women could not join the prestigious Commonwealth Club, where half of the major business deals and politics affecting Virginia were made by male power brokers with old family names. Rumor had it that these men, many of whom I knew, congregated around the indoor swimming pool, most of them naked. They bartered and pontificated in the locker room, a forum where women weren’t allowed.