Merilu then called Chad’s office, to be told by the receptionist that he was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. Two subsequent calls brought the same reply. Merilu nodded wisely each time. She bet he was in a meeting, all right. Everybody in the world would be having meetings, not that it’d do them any good!
Came suppertime, Merilu fed the boys, read to them for a while, then put them to bed. She bathed in scented bath foam, did her hair the way Chad liked it, and pulled the suitcase from under the bed in order to retrieve the negligee set he’d given her for their last anniversary. At nine o’clock, she was gorgeous. At eleven, she took the latest Danielle Steel to bed with her. At midnight, she took off her eye makeup and the peignoir and made herself a milk punch. At one o’clock on Friday morning she turned off the light.
At three, when Chad tiptoed in and began moseying around in the bedroom, opening doors and drawers, she came alert with astonishing speed, switched on the light, and immediately grasped at the idea that had floated to the top while she was dozing.
“Chad! I’ve been talking to Momma, and I’ve decided if you won’t transfer to Missoula, I’m taking the boys and going without you.”
Though she had intended this threat to make him think about things, he turned in her direction as though he hadn’t really heard her, his eyes fixed and concentrated on something in the far away.
“Good idea, honey,” he said in a distant voice with a weird reverberation in it, almost like an echo. “They won’t let me go right now, of course. Not that I’d want to until we find out what the hell is going on. But your getting away right now, yes, that’s a really good idea. This city’s going to come apart.”
Mouth open, shocked into momentary silence, she watched as he continued doing what he’d been doing when she turned the light on. Packing an overnight bag. In Merilu’s mental attic, the idea of Jerusalem and Washington coming apart and Chad acting weird began to resonate. It’s the end of the world, she thought. That’s why all this is happening. And she hadn’t been to church in months.
He snapped the case shut, took it in one hand, and came to give her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek.
“I don’t know when I’ll get back here. Be sure to lock up when you leave. Tell your mom and daddy hello for me. I’ll be in touch.”
He threw her a bonus kiss and was out the door. A moment later she heard the front door slam, the car start up and drive away. Only then did her waking mind remember its earlier preoccupation. Chad hadn’t acted like a man who was involved. He acted like a man who was absolutely in the dark and almost afraid to know what was going on.
Bert Shipton—FRIDAY
Late Friday morning, a guard rattled the bars of Bert’s cell and told him he had a visitor.
“That’d be my wife,” opined Bert, with obvious relief. Good old Benita. You had to give her credit, by God. She was a good old girl.
“Not unless she has a bigger mustache than my wife,” said the guard, unlocking the cell and standing aside. He and Bert knew one another in the relationship of miscreant and warder, one that had been renewed periodically over the last several years. “I’ve met Benita, and this guy’s not her.”
Bert, confused, shambled after the guard into the visitors’ room where he took a seat opposite a stiffly upright man garbed in a three-piece suit and an air of unassailable rectitude.
“Bert Shipton?”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Shipton, my name is Prentice Arthur. I’m with one of the national security agencies, and I flew in this morning particularly to talk to you. We’ve just recently become aware that your wife has become involved with some very . . . well, they’re foreigners, actually, people who may be very dangerous. I doubt very much she even realizes what trouble they may cause, but we’re very worried about her. If you can tell us how to reach her, just so we can protect her, we’d be glad to offer you some help in your present situation.”