“Hell of a night,” White said.
“Amen to that,” Mercer agreed noncommittally.
“Hot girl in the guest bedroom, another just in your office, and you’re going to be sleeping with a flatulent basset hound who hogs the covers.”
Mercer chuckled. “You know, I wish I liked at least one of my friends. That’s all I ask for. Just one. See you in the morning.”
Harry moved off onto the library balcony. Drag didn’t miss a step and continued up, following Mercer for his spot on the more comfortable king-size bed on the third floor.
“Damn Judas of a dog,” Harry muttered jealously. He called up after his pet, “No wet food for the rest of the week, you mangy traitor. It’s kibble or nothing.”
He may not have understood the words, but he at least understood the tone. Drag ponderously turned himself around on the sweeping stairs, backing like a semitrailer to make the swing, and dutifully tottered off to bed after his real master.
10
Mercer was at Jordan’s bedside when she woke the following morning. Her eyes expressed the full gamut of emotions in a fleeting second, before drooping in abject misery. Mercer pulled a moist compress from her forehead and resoaked it in a bowl of cool water. He wrung it over the bowl so the clear water dripped musically and placed the towel on her fevered brow.
“You’re going to a doc-in-a-box if your fever doesn’t break in the next hour,” he told her.
Jordan struggled up against the headboard so that she was slightly elevated. Her hair looked brittle against the pillows, and she shivered. He held a glass of water with a flex straw to her lips, and she drank greedily. He pulled it away before she took in too much too quickly.
She coughed, and when she spoke her voice rasped like Harry’s after a three-day bender in an Atlantic City casino. “For once in my life, I am not going to argue.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Like chilled death. Why am I so feverish?”
“Trauma and shock,” he explained. “Your body doesn’t know how to fight either, so its default response is a fever. I’ve seen this a few times. It’ll break eventually, but you’d be more comfortable if we can get you something stronger than over-the-counter meds. How’s your arm?”
She moved it without thinking and winced. “Sore, but not as bad as it could be. Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even know me.”
He smiled down at her. “For one thing, you needed help and no one else was volunteering for the job, so it fell on me. Also you were a friend of Abe…and that makes you one of the good guys, so I’d help you no matter what. And finally I am helping you because Abe and I hadn’t seen each other in too long, and I hope that you have some idea what he’d been up to lately. I need to figure out what put him in the crosshairs of a group of trained killers.”
He could see her cloud over with confusion and a lack of anything concrete to provide him. “Don’t worry about it now,” he said. “We can talk when you’re feeling better. And I don’t want to heap anything more onto your plate, but an Agent Hepburn of the FBI is here and wants to talk to you too.”
“The FBI?” It was clear she had no recollection of their visit the night before. “What do they want me for?”
Kelly Hepburn had been just outside the bedroom listening to make sure Mercer didn’t try to coach her or influence anything Jordan might say. She came around the corner and said, “I need you to corroborate the statement Dr. Mercer provided last night, Jordan. I’m Special Agent Kelly Hepburn.”
She flashed her badge and entered the guest bedroom. Mercer had to hand it to her. Harry had just told him that Jordan was coming around less than two minutes earlier. The tac guy, Simmons, who had spent the night sitting at the bar in the rec room, had radioed that information to whoever was outside, and Kelly Hepburn had knocked on the front door twenty seconds afterward. She was making certain her witnesses spent as little time together as possible without making it seem they were under suspicion.
Mercer had already noted when he’d let Hepburn into his house that she was wearing a more flattering suit than the night before, and a silk rather than cotton blouse. She wasn’t so obvious as to use more makeup, but her jewelry was better and he guessed her shoes were the best her closet had to offer. Despite this, her handshake had been cool and professional, like the night before, and her eyes hadn’t lingered on his any longer than was polite. He was left to assume that she was dressing for someone back at headquarters or one of the tac-team guys in the van outside. Since there was no sign of no-neck Nate Lowell, he could at least cross her partner off the list.
Jordan glanced quickly at Mercer, unsure. And then she found a little of the strength she had so ably demonstrated the day before. “My dad was our family’s big disappointment,” she said, helping herself to another sip of water. “He became a scientist while his two brothers both went into law. One is a senior partner in Pittsburgh, and the other is a municipal judge in Philadelphia. I’ve learned enough from them to know not to talk to the authorities, especially the FBI, without a lawyer present.”
“As is your right, Miss Weismann,” Kelly Hepburn agreed. “However neither you nor Dr. Mercer are under suspicion at this time, and I will not make any notes or recordings of this conversation. How about that? All I want is to verify what Dr. Mercer told me last night and I will be on my way.” She was hit by a sudden thought and turned to Mercer. “I was going over my notes this morning, and I can’t believe I didn’t ask you what happened to the automatic pistol you took from Abraham Jacobs’s house. Where is the Walther P-38?”
Mercer looked at Jordan, not correcting Hepburn’s mistake as to the gun’s manufacturer. “Tell her where, and it should mostly satisfy her that we aren’t the second coming of Bonnie and Clyde.” He saw Agent Hepburn stiffen. “I said mostly satisfy.”
The woman from the FBI relaxed.
Jordan said, “Mercer hid the gun in the ceiling of one of the second-floor classrooms. I think it was either 212 or 214.”
“Room 214,” Mercer verified. “I didn’t know what the police outside the building were doing, so I thought it best not to walk out armed to the teeth.”
“Prudent,” Hepburn remarked casually. “And, Jordan, why exactly were you at Hardt College and, more specifically, at Abraham Jacobs’s house?”
She looked a little sheepish. “I was being a bum, really. I, oh hell. Okay, I lost my job about five months ago and my savings ran out and I was just evicted from my apartment. I asked my dad if I could move back in with him, but he said no. Quelle surprise. He and I are no longer close since my mom died. He buried himself in work and I…had other distractions.”
Neither Mercer nor Agent Hepburn needed her to elaborate on the point.
Jordan continued, “Abe and my dad worked together back when they both taught at Carnegie Mellon, and he was always like another uncle to me, so when Dad told me I had to make it on my own, I copped out and begged a bed from Abe until I can figure out what I am going to do next. Abe was only supposed to be in Minnesota for a few days, and he hinted he might be able to get me something at Hardt when he came back.”
“What did you do for work?” Hepburn asked.
“I was a planning and zoning researcher for the city of Scranton. Budget cuts killed my position.”
“Is that what you studied in school?”
“Not exactly. I was an environmental studies major.” She gave a wan smile of unrealized dreams. “I had planned on saving the world, but that didn’t work out either.”
In mock horror Mercer said, “Dear God, a tree hugger.”
Jordan laughed until she coughed. “Sorry. And don’t worry. Two years working for a crumbling municipality has crushed any youthful optimism out of me. I haven’t hugged a tree in a long time.”