Blowout

peculiar, Callie thought. She said, “Mrs. Wallace, why do you think that?”
    “It’s nonsense,” Justice Wallace said, before his wife could speak. “You rarely visited the Court. How would you know?”
    “Tai Curtis, one of your own law clerks, told me, Sumner.”
    Justice Wallace looked embarrassed, but he managed a dry laugh, waved his hand in dismissal. “Ah, Tai dislikes her because she’s a better law clerk than he is. Forget her, Beth.”
    Mrs. Wallace looked at the coffeepot. She said nothing more.
    They took a respectful leave of Justice Sumner Wallace and his wife, and shook hands with the federal marshals who were still standing near the front door. Ben was already plotting when he could speak to Mrs. Wallace alone. The reporters were still outside when they left, shouting questions, but all they got for it was a quickly pressed-together snowball that Callie hurled at one of the reporters. She hit him in the head.
    “I always say to make use of what’s available to you,” Ben said. “Not a bad shot.”
    Callie gave a quick bow to the laughing reporters, and got into the car. “Where are we going now?” She was staring through the veil of snow at the face of Bob Simpson of Fox, a man she’d turned down some months before, which hadn’t made him very happy. She gave him a little finger wave. “Others will come to interview Justice Wallace?”
    “Oh yeah,” he said, carefully easing the Crown Vic onto the street.
    Callie hung on to the chicken strap, and watched the world slide by. Fortunately there weren’t many cars out, Washingtonians evidently living up to their reputations for self-preservation.
    “I’m taking you back to Colfax. Then I’m going to the Hoover Building. We’re having our first big organizational meeting. I’ve never been involved in something this explosive, but—”
    He shut up like a spigot.
    “But what?”
    “You’re a civilian, Callie. You shouldn’t even be in this car with me.”
    “Get a grip here, Detective Raven—”
    “Ben,” he said mildly. “You don’t want to be formal after you’ve told me I have sexy hair.”
    She wasn’t even tempted to laugh. “Ben, we’ve already been through this with Agent Savich. Get used to it. It doesn’t matter that you have sexy hair. I want to go with you to this meeting.”
    He turned the Crown Vic toward Virginia.
    Ben waited until Callie stomped into the Kettering house before he headed back to the Hoover Building. He wondered if Savich would ever tell her the main reason he’d let a civilian tag along on an official investigation was that, bottom line, he believed her threat to investigate on her own, and he knew that might put her in the sights of the murderer. He wanted her to keep safe. So, on top of everything else, Ben was a bodyguard for a big-mouthed reporter.

CHAPTER
9
    B ETHESDA N AVAL H OSPITAL
M ARYLAND
    S AVICH LOOKED DOWN at the flaccid skin and grayish pallor of Supreme Court Police Officer Henry Biggs. His head was wrapped in a wide white bandage. Savich knew he was fifty, married, with three grown children. He was a man with a long stable career, a man who, unfortunately, hadn’t kicked the smoking habit. He was lying perfectly still on his back, an IV drip in his arm, his eyes closed, his breathing a bit labored. He looked pretty bad, but Savich could see the rise and fall of his chest through the heating bag they’d put him in to regulate his temperature after he’d been left outside in the snow for so long. He could have frozen to death. Then his eyelashes fluttered as he became aware someone was there. He slowly opened his eyes. From behind Savich, Dr. Faraday said, “Mr. Biggs, two FBI agents are here to speak to you, but only for a moment. Do you feel up to it?”
    “Track the bastard down,” Officer Biggs whispered. “Fry him.”
    Sherlock touched her fingertips to his forearm. “You can count on that, Officer Biggs. We’ll fry him to a crisp.”
    Officer Biggs tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. “You FBI?”
    “Yes, sir,” Sherlock said. “Both of us. We’d like to go over what happened to you, have you give us every detail you can remember. If you become too tired, we’ll let you rest. But we do need your help as quickly as we can get it, Officer.” She heard the doctor move restlessly behind her. She turned, gave him a sunny smile, and said, “We’re not going to put him on the rack. When he tires, Doctor, we will go. May we ask you to