Blowout

his law clerks?
    “You want to know something else? When he realized that Savich had set a trap for him, he wasn’t about to die ignominiously in an FBI agent’s living room. He wanted to continue his blaze of glory last night, and that meant getting outside Savich’s house to take on a dozen FBI agents trying to bring him down. It was very much in character for him.”
    Callie said after a moment, “And you believe he picked up a woman in a bar as camouflage?”
    “Being crazy didn’t make him stupid. That was real smart of him. Who’d be looking for a couple?”
    “He’d been Günter Grass for so many years,” she said. “I guess he never even knew who he actually was.”
    “As Jimmy Maitland said, he used another man’s name in life and died with no name at all. Callie, before you go in, I want to say something. I sure liked that black dress you wore the other night. Can I see you wear it again sometime?”
    She gave him a small smile. “I’m moving back to my apartment tomorrow. My mom says now that it’s over, she doesn’t need me with her anymore.”
    “Ah.”
    “Ah good or Ah bad?”
    “Do you know it’s only a thirty-eight-foot walk from my front door to my king-size bed?”
    She laughed, leaned over, kissed him on the mouth, and was out of the door of the Crown Vic. “Tomorrow, Ben?”
    “Sure. Great. You know, that little black dress of yours would look even better hanging on my bedroom doorknob.”
    “What a guy-type visual. Be still my racing heart.” She gave him a little wave and walked up the sidewalk to her mother’s house. He waited until she unlocked the front door and disappeared inside before he drove away.
    Callie turned to set the house alarm, wondering why her mother hadn’t armed it when she’d gone to bed. She walked upstairs, and paused a moment by her mother’s bedroom door, listening. Slowly, she pushed the door open and stepped into her mother’s lovely bedroom. The white spread shone stark and cold in the moonlight pouring through the window.
    She walked to the bed to make sure her mother was all right.
    The bed was empty.
    She turned on the lights, searched for a note, then walked to her own bedroom to look for one.
    She picked up the bedroom phone to call Bitsy when she saw the blinking message light. She pushed the play button. There was a call from her mother’s manager at the Tyson’s Corner store, one from the dry cleaner, a message to call her lawyer about Stewart’s will, and finally, the last message. “Margaret, this is Anna. Come to Janette’s house right away. It’s an emergency.”
    Anna had called an hour and twelve minutes before.
    What emergency? Callie started to call, then slowly laid the phone back in its cradle. It was no surprise they were meeting at Janette’s house because there was no family to juggle around at her house since her divorce some ten years before. The five friends frequently met there.
    What emergency? Callie didn’t pause, bundled back up in her coat and gloves, and headed out to her car.
    Janette Weaverton lived in Emmittsville, Maryland, not more than a twenty-minute drive this late at night.
    There weren’t many people on the road, and she made good time. She pulled into Janette’s driveway behind her mother’s Mercedes nineteen minutes later.
    Besides her mother’s Mercedes, Callie saw four familiar cars parked in Janette’s driveway.
    There were a lot of lights on in the house. Callie walked to the front door, quietly opened it, and stepped into the warm front entrance hall. She eased the door shut behind her. Janette was a minimalist, everything spare, utilitarian. She remembered as a child that Janette had loved girlie-girl stuff, but that had changed after her husband had left.
    Callie heard women’s voices as she walked toward the living room. She paused just outside the open door when she heard Juliette’s voice: “And just what are you proposing to do now?”
    Callie heard her mother say, “Calm down, Juliette. It won’t help if we all fall apart. It’s been a shock, but we’ll deal with it. Let’s talk about this. We’ll figure out what’s best.”
    “But Stewart was your husband, Margaret,” Bitsy said. “How can you be so damned calm about it?”
    “What do you want me to do? Shoot her for stupidity? Poor judgment in men? That’s nothing new, is it?”
    Anna said, “How can we be certain the FBI are convinced that he acted on his own? Don’t forget he wasn’t alone in that