Cross Fire

Between Kyle Craig, the Patriot snipers, and these new homicides with the numbers, my attic office was as stuffed with case materials as it had ever been. That meant a lot of crime-scene photos, so I told the kids that Dad’s office was off-limits for the time being, which explained the phone call I got from Jannie that afternoon.
    “Hello, Alex, this is Janelle the Banished, calling from the faraway land of the second floor.”
    My daughter’s always been one to put the “smart” in smart aleck. I just try to keep up. “Hail thee well, Janelle. How goes it in the nether regions?”
    “You have a visitor, Daddy,” she said, back to business. “There’s a man named Mr. Siegel at the front door. He’s an FBI agent.”
    At first I thought I’d heard wrong. What could Max Siegel be doing at my house? The last time we’d tangled had been the worst so far.
    “Daddy?”
    “I’m coming right down,” I said.
    When I got to the second floor, Jannie was still waiting there. She trailed after me down the stairs, but I told her to stay inside.
    Then I closed the front door behind me on the way out.
    Siegel was on the front steps, looking very Brooklyn in jeans and a black motorcycle jacket. He also had a black helmet in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other.
    One of our security guys, David Brandabur, had positioned himself on the stoop, between Max and the door.
    “It’s fine, David,” I said. “I know him.”
    We both waited for David to go back to his car before either of us spoke.
    “What are you doing here, Max?” I asked.
    Siegel came up another step, just far enough to hand me the bag. Right away, I could see on his face that something had changed.
    “I wasn’t sure what you liked,” he said.
    I pulled out a fifth of Johnnie Walker Black. Some kind of a peace offering, I supposed, but with Siegel, I really didn’t know what to think.
    He shrugged. “I know, I know. Agent Schizo, right?”
    “Something like that,” I told him.
    “Listen, Alex, I realize what I’m like to work with. I take all this shit very personally. I shouldn’t, but I do. I’m passionate as hell. Maybe it’s part of what makes me good at my job, but I can also be a real asshole sometimes.”
    I wanted to say, “Sometimes?” but I just listened to what Siegel had to tell me.
    “Anyway,” he went on, “I just came by to say I know you’ve got your hands full these days, and if there’s anything you need, you should let me know. Anything at the Bureau, or even just security backup here at the house — someone to pull an overnight or whatever.”
    He looked up at my blank face and finally smiled. “Really. No tricks. No bullshit.”
    I wanted to believe Siegel. It certainly would have made things easier. But my instinct was still to distrust him. I couldn’t just shake that off because he came over with a peace offering.
    Then the door opened behind me, and suddenly Bree was there. “Everything okay out here?” she asked.
    Siegel chuckled. “I guess my reputation precedes me.”
    “Actually, we’ve got a teenage news service sitting on the stairs inside,” Bree said. She put out her hand, ever the peacemaker. “I’m Bree Stone.”
    “Detective Stone,” he said. “Of course. Good to meet you. I’m Max Siegel, Alex’s nightmare from the Bureau. We occasionally see things a little differently.”
    “So I’ve heard,” she said, and they both laughed. It was a little surreal actually. This was a side of Siegel I’d never seen before, the friendly, interested-in-anyone-but-himself side. And it seemed to have come out of nowhere.
    “Max was just dropping this off,” I said, showing her the bottle of scotch.
    “Right.” Siegel took a step down toward the sidewalk. “So, anyway, mission accomplished. Nice to meet you, Detective.”
    “Stay for a quick drink,” she said, and gave my hand a squeeze. “It’s the afternoon. I’m sure we could all stand to wind down a little.”
    There was no pretense here; we all knew what she was trying to do. Siegel looked up at me and shrugged. This was my call, and honestly I would have liked to have said no, but that seemed as if it could just create more trouble than it was worth.
    “Come on in,” I said, and led the way. “
Mi casa es su casa,
Max.”
    Inside, Jannie had fallen back as far as the kitchen table. Nana and Ali were there, too, in the middle of a game of Go Fish. It was Ali’s latest obsession these days, but they all stopped and looked