"David." Her voice was almost aggressively cheerful. Gideon watched David frown at her, but Ellice didn't seem to notice. "This is Gideon, one of Julia's friends from Washington."
"Uh-huh," David said. Gideon could read David's expression. Whenever he was in a position to see someone's wife go flying off the handle—screaming, crying, or otherwise going nuts—about half of the husbands would take on this same attitude of detached wariness. It was a way of broadcasting, This all is her problem, I'm just married to it.
It probably wasn't even conscious on David's part.
"I'm sorry Julia isn't here." Ellice sat down, cradling a cup of coffee in her hands. She was staring at Gideon, or maybe through him. "Maybe if you wait here a little while, you can catch her when she comes home. Don't you think so, David?"
David Zimmerman didn't say anything. He just sucked on his pipe and silently took a seat in an overstuffed leather recliner. He kept his eyes on Gideon, as if he were sizing him up.
"It's so nice to have one of Julia's friends here. She doesn't tell us anything about what she does anymore. Does she, David?" She said it as an aside that didn't really wait for her husband's answer. "I suppose it happens to everyone. Children growing up, having their own lives."
She stared momentarily into her coffee, and for those few moments it seemed the cheerful facade crumbled. For just a moment, her face, shadowed and bent, took on the aspect of someone who was grieving.
Then she turned back to Gideon and it was as if it had never happened. "So how do you know Julia? Are you one of her friends from college?"
Gideon shook his head. "No. I'm just trying to find out a few things."
"Well, I'm certain that Julia can help you. Our daughter is a genius." She glanced at David who contributed another "Uh-huh." Now Ellice was beaming. "I know, every mother thinks that of her child. But Julia really is. She went off to college when she was only sixteen." Ellice walked up to the mantel and picked up a picture. The trembling in her hand became more pronounced as she held the picture. For a moment Gideon was afraid that she would drop it to shatter on the floor in front of the fireplace.
Looking at Ellice, it was easy to picture her shattering, too.
She talked at the picture. "It was so nice to see her do so well, after all her problems. And getting a scholarship—our baby went all the way to California—"
"UCLA," Gideon said.
David looked across his glasses at him, but didn't say anything.
"Here's a picture of her," Ellice said, showing him the picture she held. For a moment he thought the frame was empty, but when he concentrated, he could make out a grainy black-and-white image that he
thought he'd seen before. She turned to face him. "Do you know what the Fields Medal is?"
Gideon shook his head.
"It's like a Nobel Prize for mathematics—they don't have a Nobel Prize for mathematics, you know. They gave Julia one, even before she got her job at MIT. She was the first woman to ever receive one."
"That's impressive," Gideon said. He was impressed. He was even more intrigued when he recognized the picture in Ellice's hand as the same one that was on Julia's mantel. But where Julia had a color photograph, the one her mother was touching right now had the grainy black-and-white quality of a newspaper clipping.
"Impressive?" Ellice said. "It is exceptional." She took the picture and stared into it. "My daughter is an exceptional woman." The grieving expression flashed across her face like a passing shadow. She shook her head and the smile returned. "But you know all that, don't you? You're her friend."
Gideon sipped his coffee.
"What is it you do?" she asked him suddenly. It was as if the woman who'd been talking for the past ten minutes was gone, replaced by someone with more normal suspicions.
"I told you, I'm a detective in the Washington D.C. Police Department." He braced himself as he said it, as if Ellice was finally going to go into threatened parent mode, assuming the worst had happened to her daughter—which, the way things looked, might not be that far from the truth.
Ellice gave him a suspicious look. "A policeman . . ."
This time Gideon could almost see her force the concept into some sort of mental box where it could safely fit with the way she was perceiving the world. Gideon felt uneasy when she said, "Why, that's kind of what Julia does now, isn't it, David? She works for the government. She catches spies . . ."
"Ellie," David finally spoke.
"Like I said, our daughter is an exceptional woman."
"Ellie," David said, a slight hardness creeping into his voice.
Ellice turned and looked at her husband. For a few moments she stared at him as if she didn't quite know who he was, or how he'd gotten here. Slowly, the smile draining from her face, she said, "Yes, honey?"
"I'm sure we've kept—" David looked at him and asked, "Gideon, is it?"
Gideon nodded, setting his coffee down on the table in front of him.
"I'm sure we've kept Gideon long enough. Julia isn't here right now—"
"But if he just waits a little bit." Ellice's voice sounded weak and a bit frightened.
"I'm sure he'll come back when Julia's here." He looked at Gideon, his thick glasses cutting faceted holes in his expression. "Won't you?"
Gideon took the cue to get to his feet. He nodded. "I'm sure I will."
Ellice shook her head. "I'm sorry for keeping you. Sometimes I forget myself. I'm so proud of my daughter, you see. . ."
"I'll walk Gideon out," David said, standing himself. "Why don't you put the dishes away?"
"Yes, I should do that." She gathered Gideon's coffee cup. All signs of the unnatural cheer were gone.
David walked around the table, took Gideon by the arm, and led him to the front door. Ellice took the few dishes to the kitchen without looking back at either of them.
David Zimmerman walked him out to the porch, and didn't say anything until the door was closed behind them.
"They haven't found her yet, have they?"
Gideon turned to look at David, and began seeing a weight there that he hadn't noticed while he was confronted with Ellice. "You mean Julia?"
"Who else?" David took the pipe out of his mouth. "Thank you for not forcing things with Ellie. When the Feds came here, it was a nightmare. When she said she expected Julia any moment, they badgered her ruthlessly. I had to throw them out—and Ellie still cried for days."
"She doesn't really expect Julia to come home soon, does she?"
"I don't know what she thinks," David looked back toward the house. "But she's been expecting Julia to show up, any minute, since she graduated from UCLA."
Gideon thought about the framed newspaper clipping. "She doesn't call home at all, does she?"
The expression on David's face was stony. He kept looking back toward the house. "That's our pain. You and your government bureaucrats can mind your own business."
David reached for the door and Gideon placed a hand on his arm. "Does she talk to her sister at all?"
David turned to face him. "Ruth? I suppose you want to talk to her, too. Just like the Feds."
"How long ago did the Feds come here?"
"Right after New Years, looking for Julia . . ." David's look became harder, more threatening. "Who are you, to come here, looking for my daughter?"
"My name's Gideon Malcolm, I'm a detective with—"
"I heard." David reached over and removed Gideon's hand from his arm. "That gives you no right to drag Julia's memory into this house. I don't care what you government people say, Julia was lost years ago. Please leave us, Agent Malcolm, Detective Malcolm, whoever the hell you are."
David turned back to the door, and Gideon asked, "Do you have any idea where she might be hiding?"