Fear itself

5

Froot Loops, thought Linda-the Maryland countryside was in full autumn riot, yellow and crimson and orange, and it was almost too much, like driving through a box of Froot Loops, or an old Technicolor Disney cartoon.

Miss Pool proved to be as efficient at giving directions as she was at managing the Bureau (everybody knew it was the FBI clerks who really ran the place): from Virginia, follow 495, the Beltway, northeast into Maryland; then take 190, the River Road, north past Potomac and turn west on Tinsman’s Lock Road. Pender’s driveway was the first (and last) one on the left, on the far side of the sign marking the entrance to the C amp;O Canal National Historical Park and telling you what you could and couldn’t do there.

It was dark by the time Linda turned down the long dirt drive. The other partygoers had parked in the overflow lot down by the canal and hiked back up the hill, so as not to screw up the surprise; the driveway was clear save for an old black muscle car-Linda parked behind it.

Some things never change, she realized, as she heard the laughter and music spilling out from the big wooden house. Thirty-five years old, seven years with the FBI, and the prospect of walking into a party where she hardly knew anybody still reduced Linda Abruzzi to the emotional age of five.

It’s okay, she reminded herself, you’re not here to socialize. Find Pender, ask him what you came to ask him, wish him luck on his retirement, maybe grab a crab puff. Then arrivederci, Abrootz-you’re out of there.

The front door was ajar; Pender, glass of Jim Beam in one hand and a shiny new beribboned Callaway driver in the other, was holding court on the far side of the rustic living room, over by the sliding glass doors that opened out onto the back porch. He saw her coming and proudly brandished the driver over his head. “Linda, what do you think of my gold watch?” Then: “Everybody, this hotshot here is Linda Abruzzi-she’s gonna be filling my thirteen double Ds back at Liaison Support.”

“If I can find them in that mess of an office, that is,” said Linda, to polite laughter. The first retort that had come into her mind was something about not leaving quite that big a footprint, but she didn’t want people looking down at her feet-she was still a little self-conscious about the shoehorn-style ankle braces built into the heels of her ugly orthopedic shoes, even though her slacks were tailored long to cover them.

And before she could ask Pender if they could talk privately, somebody tapped her on the shoulder; she turned to find herself face-to-face with another Bureau legend, Deputy Director Stephen P. McDougal. McDougal, according to scuttlebutt, had come within inches of being appointed director several years earlier, instead of Louis Freeh. Good-looking older man with tremendous presence and a head of thick white hair you wanted to walk barefoot through.

“How are you settling in, Abruzzi?”

“Excellent, sir. First rate.”

“Office all right? Need any special accommodations?”

“No, sir, I’m fine.”

“Good attitude,” said McDougal. “Behind you all the way.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Linda was relieved when he turned away-she’d found herself feeling the way she’d felt back in high school, encountering the principal in the grocery store. When do I get to be the grown-up? she wondered. And now Pender had disappeared. She glanced around, saw him out on the back porch, engaged in earnest conversation with a dapper old guy wearing what looked like one of Sinatra’s old toupees. She caught Pender’s eye; he waved to her to join them.

“Linda Abruzzi, this is Sid Dolitz. Best forensic shrink who ever wore a badge. Never treated a patient a day in his life, though.”

“Didn’t care much for crazy people,” Dolitz explained. “Bit of a handicap for a psychiatrist, but a plus as far as the Bureau was concerned.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” Dolitz had a neat little hand, not much bigger than Linda’s, and much better manicured. “I understand you have MS.”

“Yes?” As in what of it? In the few short months since her diagnosis, Linda had already met too many people who saw her disability before they saw her.

“So did my late wife. Would you mind terribly if I offered a suggestion?”

“I guess,” said Linda dubiously.

“Get yourself a cane before you throw your back out.”

“I’ll take it under consideration.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve offended you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Friends?”

“Friends.”

“In that case, can I offer you a glass of wine? I was just on my way into the kitchen to pop the top on a lovely looking Bordeaux-if you want good vino at Pender’s, you have to bring it yourself.”

“I’m on the wagon. But thanks anyway.”

Dolitz left. Linda leaned out over the wooden railing; below her, the dark hillside and the shiny black ribbon of the canal.

“Listen, Ed, I’m sorry to crash your party, but I needed to ask you a few questions, and Miss Pool said you were leaving town early tomorrow and that it would be okay to drop by.”

“Well, if Pool said it, it must be so. What can I do you for?”

“It’s about Dorie Bell’s letter.” Linda told him about Wayne Summers’s disappearance and ostensible suicide.

“Oh, man,” was Pender’s only response-but it was an eloquent oh, man.

“The thing is,” Linda continued, “I’m just not buying the suicide. Everybody else is-everybody but Dorie Bell. SFPD says drop it, Bobby says drop it, and the ASAC in San Francisco won’t even talk to me-he hung up when he found out I was with Liaison Support.”

“That ASAC-his name wouldn’t be Pastor by any chance?”

“Thomas Pastor-why, do you know him?”

“Ran into him a couple times during the Maxwell case. Empty suit-couldn’t track down an elephant with diarrhea, but he’ll look terrific at the press conference afterwards.”

“So where do I go from here?” There weren’t any courses at the Academy on liaising an investigation nobody seemed to want to conduct in the first place-but if there had been, Pender would have been the instructor.

“You have any more contacts in the field office?”

“Bobby was the last of my old gang.”

“How about SFPD?”

“Nope.”

“Then you’re screwed,” said Pender. “Unless…” And he leaned back casually against the precarious-looking railing, arms behind him, weight on his elbows-for some reason he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

“What? Unless what?”

“Unless you just happen to know two old farts named Pender and Dolitz, who just happen to be flying out to Pebble Beach tomorrow. We’ll be five minutes from Carmel-no reason I couldn’t drop by, have a little chat with Ms. Bell, at least find out whether she’s with the MDF.”

Linda gave him a never-heard-of-it shrug.

“When I first got to Washington, there was a huge flap about a plot to blow up the Washington Monument,” Pender explained. “Metro had a tip on a new group called the MDF. Antiterrorism shuts down the monument, plants snipers all around the mall, the whole nine yards. Then somebody actually goes out to interview the informant-turns out MDF stands for Martian Defense Force-the guy was intercepting messages from Mars through his fillings.”

Linda forced a laugh. “I don’t think Dorie Bell’s with the MDF. In any case, I couldn’t ask you to-”

“You didn’t-I volunteered.”

“But you’re retired now.”

“Not exactly,” said Pender. “I still have two weeks before I’m officially a civilian.”

“I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

Pender shrugged. “What’s the worst they can do, fire me?”