give away. “Not really. I mean, she’s tired and depressed, or at least
seems so.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jackson asked, taking off his sunglasses and
staring at Brophy.
“Nothing. I mean, like I said, I don’t know Sidney all that well.
So I don’t know if she and her husband really got along.”
“Uh-huh.” Jackson’s lip curled and he put his shades back on. He eyed
his partner. “You ready, Lee? This man here looks cold. Oughta go in
there and warm up,” he said, looking at Brophy. “Go pay your respects
to your bare acquaintance in there.”
Jackson and Sawyer turned and headed to their car.
Brophy’s face was red with anger. He looked back at the house once more
and then called after them. “Oh, that’s right, there was the phone call
she got.”
Both agents turned in perfect unison. “What’s that?” Sawyer asked. His
temples throbbed from lack of caffeine and he was tired of listening to
this jerk. “What phone call?”
Brophy approached them and spoke in a lowered tone, occasionally
glancing back at the house. “About two minutes before you showed up.
The caller identified himself as Henry Wharton when Sidney’s father
answered the phone.” The agents looked puzzled.
“He’s the managing partner of Tyler, Stone.”
“So?” Jackson said. “The man might be checking in on her. Seeing if
she’s okay.”
“That’s what I would’ve thought too, but…”
Sawyer’s fuse was about gone. “But what?” he asked angrily.
“I’m not sure if I’m at liberty to say.”
Sawyer’s voice dropped back to normal, but his words took on an even
more menacing tone. “It’s a little cold out here for bullshit
responses, Mr. Brophy, so I’m going to ask you real nicely to give me
the information, and that will be the only time I’ll ask real nicely.”
Sawyer leaned into Brophy’s now frightened face while the burly Jackson
crowded him from behind.
Brophy blurted out, “I called Henry Wharton at the office while Sidney
was talking to you.” Brophy paused dramatically. “When I asked about
his talk with Sidney, he was completely surprised. He had never called
her. And when she came out of the bedroom after taking the call, she
was white as a sheet. I thought she was going to faint. Her father
noticed it too and was greatly disturbed.”
“Well, if the FBI came knocking on my door on the day of my spouse’s
memorial service, I’d probably look pretty bad too,” Jackson responded.
One hand curled and uncurled, making a very large fist that he would
have given anything at that moment to let fly.
“Yeah, well, according to her father, she looked that way before he told
her you were at the front door.” Brophy had made that part up, but so
what? It wasn’t the FBI appearing at her doorstep that had thrown
Sidney Archer for a loop.
Sawyer straightened up and looked at the house. He eyed Jackson, whose
eyebrows clicked up a notch. Sawyer studied Brophy’s face. If the guy
was screwing with them… But no, it was obvious he was telling the
truth, or at least mostly the truth. He had evidently been dying to
tell them something to bounce Sidney Archer off the ceiling.
Sawyer didn’t care about Paul Brophy’s personal vendetta. He did care
about that phone call.
“Thanks for the information, Mr. Brophy. You think of anything else,
here’s my number.” He handed the attorney his card and left him in the
front yard.
Driving back into town, Sawyer glanced at his partner. “I want Sidney
Archer put under immediate twenty-four-hour surveillance.
And I want all calls going into her home in the last twenty-four hours
checked, starting with the one Mister Fancy Pants told us about.”
Jackson stared out the window. “You think that was her husband on the
phone?”
“I think she’s been through enough hell to where it would take something
pretty big to knock her off her feet like that. Even while we were
talking to her, you could see something was off. Way off.”
“So she did think he was dead?”
Sawyer shrugged. “Right now, I’m not jumping to any conclusions.
We’ll just watch her and see what happens. My gut tells me Sidney