Blowout

chambers. Eliza Vickers.”
    Ben said, “We’re only about ten minutes from the Vietnam Memorial. You ever been there?”
    “Yes. It’s always a two-handkerchief occasion, no matter how many times I go there. I think the Wall is the most moving memorial in all of Washington.”
    “Yes, I agree with you. Nearly everyone lost someone in Vietnam. One of my father’s best friends managed to ship home with two shattered legs that healed in time, but his psychological wounds were more difficult. My father came here right after the Wall was finished. He saw his friend in a wheelchair in front of the Wall, looking for other friends who’d been lost over there. My father told me they spoke for some time, but he never saw him after that.”
    It took them eight minutes to get to Constitution Gardens, a beautiful open space that pointed east to the Washington Monument and west to the Lincoln Memorial. Callie looked around the vast empty space as they pulled into a parking place on the street. “Well, it is January, cold, and the only tourists likely to be here have to be from North Dakota.”
    They walked down the path toward the Wall. They saw Fleurette immediately, standing at the middle of the Wall, completely still except for a single finger she was tracing over a name.
    Ben cleared his throat as they came down the walk so as not to startle her. There were only three other people scattered along the Wall, three older men who looked cold and determined. Even from ten feet, Ben could see a sheen of tears in their eyes and hear their low voices. He knew they were talking about young men who hadn’t come home, but who’d left their names on a beautiful granite wall.
    “Fleurette? It’s Detective Raven and Callie Markham.”
    She seemed completely unaware of him for a moment. Then she slowly turned and straightened. “Is something wrong? What’s happened now?”
    “Nothing. We wanted to speak to you.” He nodded to the Wall. Even though he knew, he asked, “Who is here for you?”
    “My uncle, Bobby LaFleurette, my dad’s younger brother. He’d be in his fifties now, not young anymore.” She turned back, traced her fingers over his name. “He died in 1975, just months before the troop withdrawal. He was only twenty-one years old. I’m twenty-six. Isn’t that the strangest thing? He was so very young, and in many ways he’ll be young forever.”
    Her finger traced again over the name, Robert R. LaFleurette. “His name comes right before Robert Petit and right after Douglas Mahoney. I’ve always wondered how they knew exactly who died in what order—that’s how they’re all listed, you know, in order of their death.”
    Callie said, “Why do you come here, Fleurette?”
    “Because Bobby was so young, because my father never stopped talking about him, how fun and wild he was, how he would have been such a hotshot in the business world, if only he’d survived the war. My father brought me here when the Wall first opened, back in 1984. I was six years old, and I remember it so very clearly.”
    Callie said, “Fleurette, remember when we talked on Sunday? You said that Danny O’Malley had looked smug last Friday morning.”
    “Yes, I remember that.”
    “Smug how, exactly?”
    “Like he knew something that neither I nor Eliza knew, and it tickled him. He looked—pleased with himself. I remember he was nodding, like he was having this sort of internal conversation with himself, and he liked what he was hearing.”
    Ben said, “Think back, Fleurette. Do you remember if Danny looked at Justice Califano when he left his chambers to go to the meeting?”
    She closed her eyes a moment, then they popped open. “Yes, Danny did do that. Yes, he did look at Justice Califano. It was a bit of a smirk, really. It all happened so fast it really didn’t settle in when it happened. But when I close my eyes now, I can see Danny sitting there, tapping his pen against his desk pad, and a smirk passing over his face.”
    “Did Justice Califano notice? Did he look over at Danny?”
    “I don’t—”
    “Close your eyes again, Fleurette. Think back.”
    Fleurette closed her eyes. She swayed a moment, leaned against the Wall for support. “Justice Califano’s back was to me when he passed by Danny’s desk, but he glanced at me before he left—and he looked suddenly tired.”
    “Tired?”
    “Yes, he looked tired, like something was too much for him. There was something on his mind, something he knew he had to