Rook didn’t respond. Harris had lived in social and professional exile for a long time, but, as prickly as he was, he was observant, experienced and very smart. He had a long career behind him, and even now, people owed him favors and came to him, quietly, for advice.
He gave Rook a supercilious smile. “Thinking you’d be smart not to underestimate me, aren’t you?”
“I’m thinking you need to get to the point.”
Harris leaned over the small table and said in a dramatic whisper, “Don’t forget. I know where a lot of the bodies in this town are buried.” He sat back abruptly and grinned, his teeth yellowed from age, cigarettes, drink and neglect. “Figuratively speaking, of course.”
Rook sucked in his impatience. “If you’re looking for action at my expense, Judge, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Understood.” Harris nodded wistfully at the middle-aged woman in the hall. “Bernadette used to stop by my office just to say hello, grab a cup of coffee. We don’t see each other that often nowadays.”
“It’s to her credit she didn’t drop you altogether.”
“I suppose it is. Ah. Here we are.” Harris seemed relieved. “Finally.”
Another woman came into their line of sight.
Rook took in her dark red hair, her big smile as she greeted Bernadette Peacham.
Hell.
Harris’s eyes lit up. “Mackenzie Stewart,” he said with relish.
She was barely thirty and slim, wearing a slip of a deep blue and carrying an evening purse just big enough for a.38 caliber pistol. Rook didn’t know women’s purses. But he knew guns.
“She’s a deputy U.S. marshal,” Harris added. “A fugitive hunter, a protector of the federal judiciary. A fellow federal agent. Doesn’t look like Wyatt Earp, does she?”
Rook kept his reaction under tight wraps. He wasn’t there to entertain Harris. “All right. You’ve had your fun. What’s going on?”
The old man’s eyes lost some of their spark. “Deputy Stewart isn’t here in a professional capacity. She’s not protecting Bernadette. In fact, she’s known Bernadette all her life.”
Well, hell, Rook thought. A half-dozen dates, and more or less all he’d learned about Mackenzie was that she was new in Washington, new to the Marshals Service and a native New Englander blessed with great legs, a kissable mouth and an unstoppable sense of humor.
They hadn’t gotten around to discussing which state she was from and what friends she might have in Washington.
The two women continued on down the hall toward the ballroom.
“Bernadette saved her,” Harris said.
“Saved her how?”
“When she was eleven, her father was maimed in a terrible accident while building a shed for Bernadette at her lake house. He was laid up for months, and Mackenzie was left on her own for much of the time. She got into trouble. Stole things. She blamed herself for what happened.”
“Why? She was eleven.”
“You know kids.”
Actually, Rook thought, he didn’t. He tried to picture Mackenzie at eleven. Freckles, he guessed. He bet she’d had a million freckles. She still did.
Harris lifted his glass, almost in a toast, and took a long drink, his eyes darker, more focused, ending any doubt in Rook’s mind whether the outcast judge should have faced charges for his gambling shenanigans five years ago. The man thrived on risk, playing it close to the edge. “You didn’t know your marshal grew up across the lake from Bernadette, did you, Special Agent Rook?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“They call Bernadette Beanie. Everyone in her hometown. Not here in Washington. Beanie Peacham. I never have.” Without waiting for a response, Harris belched and got to his feet, gesturing to his near empty glass. “Government will pay?”
“I’ll pay. Hang on, and I’ll walk out with you.”
The old man laughed, clapping a bony hand on Rook’s shoulder. “You’ve taken this news well, I have to say.” The affected lockjaw accent was back. He dropped his arm to his side and winked with amusement, a sense of drama. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk again.”
Rook let Harris go. Management of confidential informants was a tricky business under the best of circumstances. As a prosecutor, a judge and an advisor to two presidents, J. Harris Mayer had seen all kinds who’d come forward with tips, information, theories, evidence, although he’d probably never imagined himself in that role. But he would know how to play it.
Even now, after almost a month, Rook couldn’t say for certain if he was dealing with a man in the know, with secrets that troubled him, or a rambling, self-important has-been desperate to be part of something important again.
Or both, Rook thought, watching Harris turn briskly down the hall toward the hotel’s main entrance. Whether he was on the level or a phony, he clearly hadn’t made up the friendship between Mackenzie Stewart and Judge Peacham.
“Just your luck, pal.”
Rook had met Mackenzie three weeks ago, on the night Harris had sent him to a Georgetown restaurant to witness Bernadette Peacham having dinner with her ex-husband, the significance of which remained a mystery to Rook. As he’d left the restaurant, the oppressive heat had given way to a steamy, torrential downpour. He’d found himself ducking into a coffee shop to wait out the rain, at the same time as a slim, blue-eyed redhead.
Not entirely a coincidence, apparently.
They’d exchanged phone numbers and met for a movie a couple of nights later.
So much for his relationship with Mackenzie Stewart, Rook thought. He couldn’t date someone who was even peripherally involved in his investigation. He left a few bills to cover his and Harris’s tab. He and Mackenzie had a date for dinner at his place tomorrow night. His nineteen-year-old nephew, who was living with him, would be off to the beach with friends for the weekend. Perfect timing.
Not anymore. After Harris’s little bombshell, Rook had no choice. He couldn’t mix business with pleasure. He had to cancel dinner with Mackenzie. He had a job to do.
Two
Mackenzie Stewart shoved a flannel shirt into her backpack with more force than was necessary. She had the air-conditioning turned up, but she was hot – hot and agitated and in no mood to have Nate Winter, perhaps the most observant man on the planet, in her kitchen with her.
Although it wasn’t technically her kitchen.
She was a temporary resident in a corner of a historic 1850s house in Arlington. Nate’s archaeologist wife, Sarah, was in charge of getting it open to the public, a task apparently fraught with twists, turns and setbacks. Just when she thought everything was under control, the place sprang unexpected, unexplained massive leaks. Some people were convinced the leaks were the work of the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee, long-rumored to haunt the house. Mackenzie didn’t believe in ghosts. She blamed worn-out plumbing.
Nate and Sarah, pregnant with their first child, had moved into a house of their own in the spring. Sarah had offered the caretaker’s quarters to Mackenzie when she arrived in Washington six weeks ago. While she looked for a place of her own, Mackenzie could be a presence at the historic house, discouraging ghosts and potential vandals, and staying alert for new leaks.
She zipped up her backpack. She was in shorts, but was still hot. “Nate, did you and Sarah ever encounter Abe and Bobby E. while you were living here?”
Sitting at the small kitchen table, Nate watched her with a level of scrutiny that got to most people. He was a feet-flat-on-the-floor senior deputy marshal, tall, lean and notoriously impatient. He, too, was from Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, and Mackenzie had known him all her life. He was like the big brother she’d never had, and he didn’t scare her.
“I never did,” he said.
“Meaning Sarah did?”
He shrugged. “You’d have to talk to her.”