It was pointless to probe further, for she had the single desire for her son to be alive. Beyond that, any activity or inquiry was simply an invasion she was determined to sidestep. At close to ten, I headed home, and almost slipped twice on vacant streets where it was too dark to see. The night was bitterly cold and filled with sharp wet sounds as ice coated trees and glazed the ground.
I felt discouraged because it did not seem anyone knew Eddings beyond what he had been like on the surface or in the past. I had learned he had collected coins and butterflies and had always been charming. He was an ambitious reporter with a limited attention span, and I thought how odd it was that I should be walking through his old neighborhood in such weather to talk about this man. I wondered what he would think could I tell him, and I felt very sad.
I did not want to chat with anyone when I walked into my house, but went straight to my room. I was warming my hands with hot water and washing my face when Lucy appeared in the doorway. I knew instantly that she was in one of her moods.
"Did you get enough to eat?" I looked at her in the mirror over the sink.
"I never get enough to eat," she irritably replied.
"Someone named Danny from your Norfolk office called.
He said the answering service was contacted about our cars.
For a moment my mind went blank. Then I remembered.
"I gave the towing service the office number." I dried my face with a towel. "So I guess the answering service reached Danny at home."
"Whatever. He wants you to call." She stared at me in the mirror as if I had done something wrong.
"What is it?" I stared back.
"I've just got to get out of here."
"I'll try to get the cars here tomorrow," I said, stung.
I walked out of the bathroom, and she followed.
"I need to get back to UVA."
"Of course you do, Lucy," I said.
"You don't understand. I've got so much to do."
"I didn't realize your independent study or whatever it is had already started." I walked into the gathering room and headed for the bar.
"It doesn't matter if it's started. I've got a lot to set up. And I don't understand how you're going to get the cars
here. Maybe Marino can take me to get mine."
"Marino is very busy and, my plan is simple," I said.
"Danny will drive my car to Richmond and he has a reliable friend who will drive your Suburban. Then Danny and his friend will take the bus back to Norfolk."
"What time?" -That's the only snag. I can't permit Danny to do any of this until after hours, because he can't deliver my personal car on state time." I was opening a bottle of Chardonnay.
"Shit," Lucy impatiently said. "So I won't have transportation tomorrow, either?"
"I'm afraid neither of us will," I said.
"And what are you going to do, then?"
I handed her a glass of wine. "I'll be going into my office and probably spending a lot of time on the phone.
Anything you might be able to do at the field office here?"
She shrugged. "I know a couple people who went through the Academy with me."
At the very least she could find another agent to take her to the gym so she could work off her ugly mood, I started to say, but held my tongue.
"I don't want wine." She set the glass down on the bar.
"I think I'll just drink beer for a while."
"Why are you so angry?"
"I'm not angry." She got a Beck's Light out of the small refrigerator and popped off the cap.
"Do you want to sit down?"
"No," she said. "By the way, I've got the Book, so don't get alarmed when you don't find it in your briefcase."
"What do you mean, you have it?" I looked uneasily at her.
"I was reading it while you were out talking to Mrs. Eddings." She took a swallow of beer. "I thought it would be a good idea to go over it again in case there's something we didn't notice."
"I think you've looked at it quite enough," I flatly said.
"in fact, I think all of us have."
"There's a lot of Old Testament-type stuff in there. I mean, it's not like it's satanic, really."
I watched her in silence as I wondered what was really going on in that incredibly complicated brain.
"I actually find it rather interesting, and believe it has power only if you allow it to have power. I don't allow it, so it doesn't bother me," she was saying.
I set down my glass. "Well, something certainly is."
"Only thing bothering me is I'm stranded and tired. So guess I'll just go to bed," she said. "I hope you sleep well."
But I did not. Instead, I sat before the fire worrying about her, for I probably knew my niece better than anyone did.
Perhaps she and Janet had simply had a fight and repairs would be made in the morning, or maybe she really did have too much to do, and not being able to return to Charlottesville was more of a problem than I knew.
I turned the fire off and checked the burglar alarm one more time to make certain it was armed, then I walked back to my bedroom and shut the door. Still, I could not sleep, so I sat up in lamplight listening to the weather as I studied the journal that had been printed by Eddings' fax machine.
There were eighteen numbers dialed over the past two weeks, and all of them were curious and suggestive that he certainly had been home at least some of the time and doing something in his office.
What also struck me right away was that if he had worked at home, I would have expected numerous transmissions to the AP office downtown. But this was not the case. Since mid-December, he had faxed his office only twice, at least from the machine we had found at his house.
This was simple enough to determine because he had entered a speed dial label for the wire service's fax number, so "AP DESK" appeared in the journal's identification column, along with less obvious labels like -NVSE,"DRMS,"
"CPT" and "LM." Three of those numbers had Tidewater, Central and Northern Virginia area codes and exchanges, while the area code for DRMS was Memphis, Tennessee.
I tried to sleep but information drifted past my eyes and questions spoke because I could not shut them off. I wondered who Eddings had been contacting in these different places, or if it mattered. But what I could not get away from was where he had died. I could still see his body suspended in that murky river, tethered by a useless hose caught on a rusting screw. I could feel his stiffness as I held him in my arms and swam him up with me. I had known before I had ever reached the surface that he had been dead many hours.
At three A.M. I sat up in bed and stared at the darkness.
The house was quiet except for its usual shifting sounds, and I simply could not turn off my conscious mind. Reluctantly, I put my feet on the floor, my heart beating hard, as if it were startled that I should stir at such an hour. In my office I shut the door and wrote the following brief letter:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I realize this is a fax number, otherwise I would call in person. I need to know your identification, if possible, as your number has shown up on the printout of a recently deceased individual's fax machine. Please contact me at your earliest convenience, If you need verification of the authenticity of this communication, contact Captain Pete Marino of the Richmond Police Department.
I gave telephone numbers and signed my title and my name, and I faxed the letter to every speed dial listing in Eddings' journal, except, of course, the Associated Press.
For a while I sat at my desk, staring rather glazed, as if my fax machine were going to solve this case immediately. But it remained silent as I read and waited. At the reasonable hour Of Six A.M., I called Marino.
"I take it there was no riot," I said after the phone banged and dropped and his voice mumbled over the line.
"Good, you're awake," I added.
"What time is it?" He sounded as if he were in a stupor.