Better Dead (30 page)

I'd seen no harm and some possible benefit in bringing Bettie along. I'd promised to spend Thanksgiving with her and she was game for an adventure. At Penn Station, we'd taken an 11 a.m. to Washington, D.C.—tickets were no problem, travel on the holiday itself running light—arriving around four, and renting a car for the less-than-an-hour ride to Frederick, Maryland.

We got there just before five. Alice met us at the door in a cream-color apron and brown-and-gold leaf-patterned-print housedress, saying we were just in time, and we sat down in their little dining room for a Thanksgiving meal where I was the only man at the table, not counting nine-year-old Eric and five-year-old Nils.

Alice told us she hadn't heard from her husband yet today and had waited the meal as long as she could. That was all she said about it in front of the children, the conversation at the table taken up mostly by questions (and answers) about Bettie and me and our respective families. Bettie spoke fondly of her siblings and her mother (her abusive father notably absent), and I played proud papa relating the extraordinary accomplishments of my five year-old son, who I'd talked to earlier today, long-distance.

The food was typically hearty holiday fare and just fine, the stuffing particularly, but Alice had said, “I'm afraid I can't offer you second helpings. Have to save some for Frank. He might show up any moment, you know.”

The undercurrent of strain was almost imperceptible, but it was there all right, and now that Alice and I were alone at the little table, under a single hanging lamp, dusk darkening to night out the windows over the sink, the haggardness and worry were all too clear in the long, attractive face.

“You're very kind to come all this way,” she said, after pouring cups of coffee for us, “and spoil what must have been a lovely day you two had planned.”

“Happy to help,” I said. “To
try
to, anyway.”

“The business card I found that you gave Frank—do you mind my asking? You're not a part of his work, are you? Not someone attached to that in any way?”

“That's right, I'm not.”

“You're a private investigator.”

“I am. From Chicago, with a Manhattan branch.”

She was sizing me up and I didn't blame her. “The other night … did Frank hire you to do something for him? To look into something? I'm just wondering if it has anything to do with … with the
strangeness
of these past few days.”

“Alice … if may?”

“Certainly.”

“And make it ‘Nate' or ‘Nathan.' What Frank approached me about must stay confidential, at least for now. But if there is a connection between the ‘strangeness' you've experienced, and what he and I discussed, know that any efforts I make will be in his … and your … best interests.”

Her smile was thin but better than a frown. “I guess I'll just have to take you at your word, then. It does seem as though an investigator is exactly what I need right now.”

I sipped the coffee. Out in the other room Bettie and the kids were laughing.

“Tell me about this ‘strangeness,' Alice. When did it start?”

She nodded, sipped, gathered her thoughts.

“Frank got back from the retreat in time for dinner, Friday evening,” she said, glancing at me occasionally, but mostly staring into her recollection. “I knew something was wrong, right away. He seemed stiff, withdrawn … and he's usually so outgoing.”

“Where was this retreat?”

“A lodge with some cabins at Deep Creek Lake. Just sixty miles or so from here. It's not unusual for Frank to go out of town for a meeting, anywhere around the country in fact, even overseas. But this time it was close to home.”

“Is this lodge a place you're familiar with, Alice?”

She shook her head. “No. I just happened to see the directions he'd been given … for the ‘Deep Creek Rendezvous.' The slip of paper was right here on the kitchen table.” She pointed between us.

“Any sign that this meeting, this retreat, was in any way out of the ordinary?”

“Nothing at all. Vin Ruwet, Frank's division chief, swung by for him Wednesday morning, honked his horn. Frank gave me a nice big kiss and said he'd see me in a couple of days. I helped him on with his coat and he said, ‘Tell the kids be good and I love them.'”

“You didn't hear from Frank while he was gone?”

She shook her head. “No. But that's not unusual. Things didn't get unusual until we were having dinner the night he got back. He seemed so … mechanical, so cold. He hardly ate a thing, hardly said a word. The kids were all over him with questions and news about school but he'd just give a faint smile and nod, and finally they stopped trying, just talked among themselves. After they ran off chattering to watch TV, I said to Frank, ‘Well, at least the children in this family can still communicate.' Then he looked up at me and smiled.…” She swallowed, and her eyes were moist. “… Just his normal self, you know? And he said, ‘We'll talk later, after they go to bed.'”

“
Did
you talk?”

She sighed. “Not really. When I'd tucked all the kids in, and the house was quiet, I came in the living room and he'd turned the TV off, and was just sitting on the couch, staring out the window. At nothing. I asked him what was wrong and he said, ‘You don't need to know.' Not nasty or anything. Just … I didn't need to know. This was
his
problem. But I knew it was our problem, and I pressed.”

“Were you able to get anything out of him?”

“Just one thing. He said, ‘I've made a terrible mistake.'”

Was I the mistake he'd made? Breaching security by talking to McCarthy's man? Had someone discovered that?

She said, “I asked him, ‘What could possibly be that terrible? You're here with us, you're fine, what
is
it?' But all he would say, and he said it several times, was, ‘I've made an awful mistake.'”

“What was his manner?”

“Withdrawn. But not so cold now. Not cold at all. I made a fire in the fireplace and sat next to him and … and he reached his hand out for mine, held it tight. We just sat there holding hands and not saying a word for what had to be an hour, and then, suddenly, he said, ‘I have to resign Monday morning.'”

I shifted in the kitchen chair. “Did he say why?”

She shook her head. “No, and I asked him several times, begged him to tell me, but he just wouldn't say. Sunday he moped around, not mean or angry … sort of sullen. Finally I figured I just needed to get him out of here, so I said, ‘Let's go to the movies.' He didn't object. So I piled the kids into the car and we all went downtown to the theater. But I think that was a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Well, the movie playing was really gloomy and downbeat—
Martin Luther
.”

Not exactly
Kiss Me, Kate
.

“The kids fidgeted and misbehaved,” she said, “and Frank just ignored it. After it was over, Frank didn't say a word. And when Monday morning came, he said again he was going to resign and I said he should do whatever he thought was right.”

“
Did
Frank resign, Alice?”

“Apparently he tried. He called about two hours later and said he'd talked to Vin and that Vin had talked him out of it and everything was fine. That he hadn't made a mistake, after all. And that evening? A little withdrawn, but pretty much his old self.”

“Back to normal.”

“Yes,” she said, her eyebrows going up, “but not for long. Tuesday, he came home from work just before noon with his boss Vin along. Frank walked me right here into this kitchen and sat me down at this table where I am now and said, ‘Vin wants me to see a psychiatrist.' I knew he'd been upset and acting a little odd, but that had never crossed my mind! I didn't know what to say, particularly in front of Vin, and Frank sensed as much, and said, ‘Vin came along because he was afraid I might try to hurt you.'”

“
Hurt
you?”

“That was my reaction! Frank hurt
me
? That made no sense! And I said something to that effect, and Frank said, ‘I'm sorry, but they're afraid I might do you and the kids bodily harm.'”

Bodily harm. Oddly formal phrase.

“This Ruwet,” I said, “where was he during all this?”

“Sitting where you are. Frank was here.” She pointed to the empty chair between us. “Vin's a family friend, and I said to him, ‘What's this all about, anyway?' And Vin said, ‘It's going to be all right.' And I said something like, ‘All right! It's
not
all right! I don't understand
any
of this!'”

Alice was shaking. I reached across and touched her hand. She swallowed, forced another thin smile, then slipped her hand out from under mine, got up wordlessly, and refilled our coffee cups.

She sat, sipped, resumed. “Frank and Vin went into the den and talked for maybe half an hour. I just stayed out here, trying to make sense of things, feeling like a truck hit me. Then Frank came in quickly and said, ‘We're going back to Fort Detrick. They're making arrangements for me to see a shrink.'”

“Did Frank seem all right with that?”

“He did, in a shell-shocked kind of way. I said, ‘Who besides Vin says you need a psychiatrist?' And he said, ‘They think it's best.' And I said, ‘Who the hell are
they
?' But all he said was, ‘It's going to be fine.' I've always stayed out of Frank's business. You have to understand that we never talked about his work—I've never even been inside the building where he works. So I don't know where I got the gumption to say it, but I did—I said, ‘I'm coming with you.'”

“Good for you. How did his boss react?”

“Vin stayed low-key. He said we could all ride to Washington together. A car from the base came to pick us up. Vin was in uniform—he's a lieutenant colonel—and we stopped by his house so he could change into civilian clothes. There was a military driver but he was in civvies, too.”

Interesting.

I said, “How was Frank doing?”

“At that point, when we were just setting out, Frank got anxious, and wanted to know where we were going. Vin said, ‘Washington, D.C., and on by air to New York.' I asked why New York, and Vin said, ‘To get Frank the medical attention he needs.'”

“He couldn't get that in D.C.?”

She shrugged. “That's all the answer Vin gave me, and I was kind of reeling at that point. Anyway, I ask, ‘How long are you going to be there?' And Frank says, ‘Not long,' and I say, ‘But
how
long? Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow!' And Frank says, ‘I'll be home for Thanksgiving, honey. Don't worry. I promise.'”

She began to cry.

I'd been anticipating this and came around with a handkerchief. Then I settled into the nearer chair, her husband's. From the living room, Bettie—on the floor with the little girl, playing dolls near the premature Christmas tree—glanced toward us with a sympathetic frown.

When she was able, Alice said, “We stopped for lunch on the way, at the Hot Shoppe, a little restaurant we know. But Frank seemed even more anxious, looking around the restaurant like it was … strange and threatening. When his food came, he pushed it away. I said, ‘Dear, you have to eat,' and he said, ‘You don't understand, Alice—they can put anything they want in your food.'”

“‘They,'”
I said.

“They. And I asked him
again
who ‘they' was, and he said, ‘Forget it,' and waved it off. In Washington we went to a military-looking building near the Reflecting Pool.”

CIA headquarters.

“Vin left us in the car with the driver and went in. In the backseat, I held Frank's hand and asked him to promise to be home for Thanksgiving. He said he would. Then Vin was back, and Frank squeezed my hand and slid out of the car. ‘See you in a couple of days,' he said. And that's the last I've heard from him, Nate.”

They were keeping him under wraps for some reason. Likely they knew he had become a security risk.

They.

I sipped my coffee. “So he's likely in New York, or possibly in D.C. Do you have names I can follow up on? People Frank works with who are situated in Manhattan? I don't suppose your friend Vin gave you the name of the shrink he was taken to.”

Her expression was woefully apologetic. “I'm afraid I don't have anything like that at all for you. And with Frank working for the government, in such sensitive areas, this may be impossible for you to look into. Now that I see it in front of me … and hear myself go through the story … I'm afraid I've wasted your time.”

I leaned forward, patted her hand. “Is there anyone at Fort Detrick who might talk to me? Someone who works with Frank, who Frank trusts, who might have seen things or heard things about this episode, over these past few days?”

Her eyes came alive. “Yes. Yes, there is! Norman Cournoyer—I should've thought of him right away! He's a biochemist at the lab who's very close to Frank. We socialize. I could call him—maybe he'd be willing to be bothered, even though it is a holiday.”

“Let's try,” I said.

In the living room, the children laughed.

“I'll go give Norm a call,” she said, getting up. “Have another piece of pie while you're waiting, please. Just … not the apple.”

*   *   *

The cocktail lounge of the Francis Scott Key Hotel in downtown Frederick was not hopping. Right now, it was a bartender fighting boredom, a couple at the bar getting chummy in a way that said they were either old friends or had just met, and two two-fisted drinkers who were acquainted and conversing but keeping a respectful stool between them.