Blowout

tears.”
    “No wonder, you’ve been through a terrible experience.”
    “I’m not the one dead, Dr. Hicks.”
    “The dead don’t care anymore, Annie, only the living,” Dr. Hicks said. “Now, you think you’re ready?”
    “I’ve never done this before. Don’t you want me to lie down or something?”
    “No, that’s not necessary. Just get yourself comfortable in the chair. May I call you Annie?”
    She nodded.
    “Okay, now, I’d like you to look closely at this silver dollar. It originally belonged to my great-grandfather. Look at it, nothing else. That’s right, follow it with your eyes.”
    While he gently swung the silver dollar on its chain about four inches from Annie’s face, he began talking about the people he knew who worked at the Department of the Interior—there were at least a dozen of them. His voice was soft, without inflection. Within four minutes, Savich thought she was under. Dr. Hicks slipped the silver dollar back in his vest pocket and said in his slow soft voice, “Annie, how do you feel?”
    Annie was still looking at the place where the silver dollar had been swinging. “Cold. On the inside. Could Agent Savich hold my hand?”
    Savich clasped both of her hands between his. The three of them were very close now. He saw from the corner of his eye that both the Harper parents were staring toward them, but thankfully, Sherlock was keeping them under control.
    “Better now, Annie?”
    “Yes,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I wish Danny could have been more like Agent Savich. This wouldn’t have happened if he’d been like Agent Savich, but Danny was an opportunistic jerk.”
    Now this was interesting, Savich thought. He kept stroking her hands, which were becoming warmer by the minute.
    He waited until Dr. Hicks nodded to him, then said, “Annie, did you realize Danny was an opportunistic jerk only yesterday, or some time before?”
    “I guess I’ve always known, Agent Savich. He played a good game, what with his sweet Irish lad act. He liked me, don’t get me wrong; I know he did. But he didn’t love me, not like I talked myself into thinking I loved him. Can you believe I even did his laundry because he told me he loved the way I folded his clothes? What an idiot.”
    “What did Danny do to make you question his integrity?”
    “Well, he lied to Eliza, told her he’d done stuff when he really hadn’t, but not that much because Eliza’s really smart, and he knew he couldn’t get away with it. Then he’d kiss up to her big time because he knew she had real power over his life. She could get him fired if she wanted. Justice Califano really listened to her, at least that’s what Danny was always telling me.”
    “Eliza never noticed when Danny didn’t follow through? That he lied?”
    “Not that he ever told me. He’d laugh about it, you know, like a little kid in grade school who’d pulled something over on the teacher. Eliza was always really nice to me. I think I could have been a close friend to her, only there wasn’t time in her life, and I understood that. As for Fleurette, I don’t think she knew Danny all that well, but I could be wrong.”
    “What about Justice Califano? Did he ever catch Danny in a lie that you know of? Catch him doing something he shouldn’t have been doing?”
    Slowly, Annie shook her head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t part of the inner circle. All my information came from Danny. If Justice Califano had caught him in a lie, he sure wouldn’t tell me about it, would he? And the fact is, Danny wanted Justice Califano to like him. He wanted a great recommendation from him when the year was up. So it seems to me the last thing Danny would want to do is lie to Justice Califano.”
    “Okay, I want you to tell me about Friday. You picked Danny up at the Supreme Court Building. What sort of mood was he in?”
    “The fact is I’d never know which Danny I’d see. The happy Danny or the brooding Danny. He wasn’t either one on Friday. He was distracted, like there was really something on his mind. But he wouldn’t talk about it, just kept eating those disgusting anchovies. I hate anchovies.”
    “Do you think he put something important in his briefcase?”
    She looked thoughtful, then shook her head. “I don’t know. Where is his briefcase?”
    “We couldn’t find it. It wasn’t in his apartment.”
    “That’s too bad. Danny would like to be buried with that briefcase. Oh, God, I didn’t mean it like