“I may as well take matters into my own hands,” Hammer decided. “I can’t wait for the governor to see me while a dentist is held hostage on an island that has declared war on Virginia. Nothing good can come from this, Andy. We must intervene immediately.”
“With all due respect,” Andy started to say, but caught himself. “Superintendent Hammer,” he started again, “Governor Crimm is a proud man who is addicted to power. If you go over his head, he won’t forgive or forget it. He may not recognize it, but he’ll deeply resent your getting all the credit.”
“Then what the hell do we do?”
“Give me forty-eight hours,” Andy boldly promised. “I’ll somehow get an audience with him and inform him of all the facts.” He paused as he thought of Popeye and how empty Hammer’s house seemed without the little dog. “I posted a photo of Popeye on the home page of my website . . .”
“I saw it,” Hammer replied. “And you should have asked me first, now that we’re on the subject.”
“I’m not going to give up on her,” Andy said.
Hammer’s eyes filled with tears that she quickly blinked back.
“I know how much you miss her,” Andy went on, touched by her sadness and determined to make her talk to him about her feelings. “And I know how much you hate it when I do things without permission, but I’m not a rookie anymore, Superintendent Hammer. I have a mind of my own and a pretty good sense of what I’m doing. It seems you’re always irritated with me and have no appreciation of anything I do.”
Hammer wouldn’t look at him or respond.
“To be honest,” Andy went on, “you seem miserable and mad at the world most of the time these days.”
Hammer was silent. Andy started to get up from his chair.
“Well, I don’t want to invade your privacy,” he said, sensing that the last thing she wanted was for him to leave. “But I guess I’ll head out and not disturb you any further.”
“That’s a good idea,” Hammer said, abruptly getting up. “It’s late.”
She walked him to the door as if she couldn’t wait for him to leave.
Andy glanced at his watch. “You’re right. I need to go,” he said. “I have to finish my next essay, you know.”
“Do I dare bring up the subject?” Hammer asked as she walked him out to the front porch, where a tart fall breeze rustled trees that were beginning to turn the first hues of yellow and red. “Will there be more salient comments from your wise confidante?”
“I don’t have a wise confidante,” Andy said with surprising sharpness as he went down the steps and passed through the gentle glow of gaslight lamps. “I wish I did,” he tossed back at her as he unlocked his car. “But I’ve yet to meet anybody who fits that description.”
He drove back home feeling out of sorts, and he was startled and suspicious when he climbed his front steps and saw a trash bag on the mat and an envelope taped to his door. There was nothing written on the plain white envelope, which looked like the generic kind available in any drugstore, and the black plastic trash bag clearly had something in it. Andy’s law-enforcement instincts instantly went on alert, and he touched nothing and got on his cell phone.
“Detective Slipper,” a voice answered after the phone rang for a long time inside the Richmond police department’s A Squad, the division that worked violent crimes.
“Joe,” Andy said, “it’s me, Andy Brazil.”
“Yo! What’cha know? We still miss your ugly face around here. How are things with the state police?”
“Listen,” Andy abruptly said, “can you buzz over to my house? Someone’s left something strange on my porch, and I don’t want to touch it.”
“Shit! You want me to bring the bomb squad?”
“Not yet,” Andy replied. “Why don’t you come here first and take a look?”
He sat on his front steps in the dark, because his porch light wasn’t on a timer and the lights were off inside to save on his electric bill. Richmond police headquarters was downtown but not far from the Fan District where Andy’s tiny rented row house was located. Detective Joe Slipper rolled up fifteen minutes later, and Andy realized how much he missed some of his old friends from his former job as a city cop.