Hammer had never considered this. "That's ridiculous," she decided.
"With all due respect…"
She raised a hand to silence him. Whenever anyone led off with all due respect, she knew damn well she was being lied to and was about to be dissed or annoyed. "Just say whatever it is, and cut the respect crap," Hammer told him.
"Someone needs to inform him that he has to do something about his vision," Andy made the point. "Maybe you should."
"If I ever talk to him, I'll tell him that and more," Hammer said impatiently.
Andy made her feel old. His very presence aged her by years, and she had begun reacting with avoidance and wasn't especially warm to him anymore. She had been a strikingly handsome woman all of her life until she'd turned fifty-five, when it seemed to her she instantly accumulated body fat and wrinkles. Her upper lip began to disappear overnight, her hair began to thin, and her breasts began to shrink, all within days. Andy, meanwhile, only got handsomer every time she saw him.
It wasn't fair, she thought.
"Are you all right, Superintendent Hammer?" Andy asked. "You seem angry and kind of out of sorts all of a sudden."
"Just the mention of the governor puts me in a foul mood," she evasively said.
It was so fucking unfair, she silently complained. Men Hammer's age dated women Andy's age, women who thought bald heads, weathered skin, thick glasses, decreased muscle bulk, migrating hair, special pumps and pills to help raise the level of intimacy, and snoring were somehow a bonus. Oh, how women had been brainwashed, Hammer raged on in silence. Young women bragged to each other about how old their lovers were.
Just the other day, Windy Brees had been smoking a cigarette outside in the headquarters parking lot when Hammer overheard her telling a friend about Mr. Click. Hammer had briskly walked past Windy and the friend, staring at the pavement, loaded down with files and her briefcase, pretending she was unaware of the conversation. But Windy had a voice that carried, and the entire state police force heard every word.
"How old is Mr. Click?" Windy's young female friend had asked enviously.
"Ninety-one," Windy had proudly replied. "I'm just smitten. All I do is wait by the phone." She held up her cell phone and sighed, wishing it would trill.
"But it's not on," the friend had observed. "You have to push in the power button and turn it on, otherwise it won't ring if he calls." She dug her own cell phone out of her purse and demonstrated.
"Well, I'll be!" Windy had exclaimed with renewed hope. "I wonder if he knows to turn his on? Because whenever I call his cell phone, I always get this same voice that says he's not available, and it depresses me, because I worry he isn't available in general and that's why I've not heard from him since late last night."
"I may as well take matters into my own hands," Hammer decided. "I can't wait for the governor to see me while a dentist is held hostage on an island that has declared war on Virginia. Nothing good can come from this, Andy. We must intervene immediately."
"With all due respect," Andy started to say, but caught himself. "Superintendent Hammer," he started again, "Governor Crimm is a proud man who is addicted to power. If you go over his head, he won't forgive or forget it. He may not recognize it, but he'll deeply resent your getting all the credit."
"Then what the hell do we do?"
"Give me forty-eight hours," Andy boldly promised. "I'll somehow get an audience with him and inform him of all the facts." He paused as he thought of Popeye and how empty Hammer's house seemed without the little dog. "I posted a photo of Popeye on the home page of my website…"
"I saw it," Hammer replied. "And you should have asked me first, now that we're on the subject."
"I'm not going to give up on her," Andy said.
Hammer's eyes filled with tears that she quickly blinked back.
"I know how much you miss her," Andy went on, touched by her sadness and determined to make her talk to him about her feelings. "And I know how much you hate it when I do things without permission, but I'm not a rookie anymore, Superintendent Hammer. I have a mind of my own and a pretty good sense of what I'm doing. It seems you're always irritated with me and have no appreciation of anything I do."
Hammer wouldn't look at him or respond.
"To be honest," Andy went on, "you seem miserable and mad at the world most of the time these days."
Hammer was silent. Andy started to get up from his chair.
"Well, I don't want to invade your privacy," he said, sensing that the last thing she wanted was for him to leave. "But I guess I'll head out and not disturb you any further."
"That's a good idea," Hammer said, abruptly getting up. "It's late."
She walked him to the door as if she couldn't wait for him to leave.
Andy glanced at his watch. "You're right. I need to go," he said. "I have to finish my next essay, you know."
"Do I dare bring up the subject?" Hammer asked as she walked him out to the front porch, where a tart fall breeze rustled trees that were beginning to turn the first hues of yellow and red. "Will there be more salient comments from your wise confidante?"
"I don't have a wise confidante," Andy said with surprising sharpness as he went down the steps and passed through the gentle glow of gaslight lamps. "I wish I did," he tossed back at her as he unlocked his car. "But I've yet to meet anybody who fits that description."
He drove back home feeling out of sorts, and he was startled and suspicious when he climbed his front steps and saw a trash bag on the mat and an envelope taped to his door. There was nothing written on the plain white envelope, which looked like the generic kind available in any drugstore, and the black plastic trash bag clearly had something in it. Andy's law-enforcement instincts instantly went on alert, and he touched nothing and got on his cell phone.
"Detective Slipper," a voice answered after the phone rang for a long time inside the Richmond police department's A Squad, the division that worked violent crimes.
"Joe," Andy said, "it's me, Andy Brazil."
"Yo! What'cha know? We still miss your ugly face around here. How are things with the state police?"
"Listen," Andy abruptly said, "can you buzz over to my house? Someone's left something strange on my porch, and I don't want to touch it."
"Shit! You want me to bring the bomb squad?"
"Not yet," Andy replied. "Why don't you come here first and take a look?"
He sat on his front steps in the dark, because his porch light wasn't on a timer and the lights were off inside to save on his electric bill. Richmond police headquarters was downtown but not far from the Fan District where Andy's tiny rented row house was located. Detective Joe Slipper rolled up fifteen minutes later, and Andy realized how much he missed some of his old friends from his former job as a city cop.
"Damn good to see you," he said to Slipper, a short, pudgy man who always reeked of cologne and had a taste for slick designer suits that he got dirt cheap at a local men's discount shop.
"Shit," Slipper said as he probed the trash bag and blank envelope with a Kel light. "This is really weird."
"You got any gloves handy?" Andy asked.
"Sure." Slipper pulled a pair of surgical gloves out of a pocket.
Andy put them on and tugged the envelope off the door. It was sealed, and he slit it open with a pocket knife. Inside was a Polaroid photograph, and Andy and Slipper were stunned as the flashlight revealed a shocking image of Trish Thrash's nude, bloody body at Belle Island. Slipper nudged the trash bag with his foot.
"Shit," he said. "Feels like clothes in there."
He opened the bag and carefully pulled out a black leather biker's jacket, jeans, panties, a bra, and a T-shirt with the logo of what appeared to be a Richmond women's softball team. The clothing appeared to have been cut with a razor blade and was stiff with dried blood.
"Christ," Andy said as he broke out in a cold sweat and thought of what had been carved on the murdered woman's body. "I got no idea what's going on here, Joe."