Four Blind Mice

on top of him. “How’s that? Is that better for you?”
    He ran his strong hands up and down her back and over her buttocks. She hummed “One Night with You.” They began to move together, slowly at first. Then faster. And faster still. Billie rose and fell hard on him. She liked it that way.
    When they finally collapsed with the pleasure of it all, she looked into his eyes. “Not bad for your first time. You’ll get better.”
    Later, Sampson lay in the bed with Billie snuggled up against his side. It still made him smile to see how small she was. Small face, small hands, feet, breasts. And then the thought hit him — stunned him: He was at peace for the first time in years. Maybe ever.

Chapter 77
    I WAS PUMPED up to see Nana and the kids when I got home from my trip to Florence prison that night. It was only seven, and I’d been thinking we might go to the IMAX theater or maybe the ESPN Zone — some nice treat for the kids.
    As I climbed the front steps of the house, I spotted a note stuck into the screen door, flapping in the breeze.
    Uh-oh.
    Messages left at the house always make me a little queasy. There’d been too many bad ones left there during the past few years.
    I recognized Nana’s handwriting:
Alex, we’ve gone to your aunt Tia’s. Be back by nine or so. Everybody misses you. Do you miss us? Of course you do — in your own way. Nana and the kids.
    I’d noticed that Nana Mama had been unusually sentimental lately. She said she was feeling better, back to her old self again, but I wondered if that was true. Maybe I should talk to her doctor, but I didn’t like interfering in her business. She’d been doing an excellent job taking care of herself for a long time.
    I shuffled into the kitchen and grabbed a cold beer from the fridge.
    I saw a funny drawing of a pregnant stork that Jannie had stuck up on the door. Suddenly I felt lonely for everybody. The thing about kids for some people — for me anyway — is that they complete your life, make some kind of sense out of it, even if they do drive you crazy sometimes. The pain is worth the gain. At least in our house it is.
    The telephone rang, and I figured it was Nana.
    “Hooray, you’re home!” came a welcome voice.
Well, surprise, surprise.
It was Jamilla, and that cheered me right up. I could picture her face, her smile, the bright shine in her eyes.
    “Hooray, it’s
you
. I just got home to an empty house,” I said. “Nana and the kids deserted me.”
    “Could be worse, Alex. I’m at work. Caught a bad one on Friday. Irish tourist got killed in the Tenderloin district. So tell me, what was a fifty-one-year-old
priest
from Dublin doing in one of the seediest parts of San Francisco at two in the morning? How did he get strangled with a pair of extra-large pantyhose? My job to find out.”
    “Sounds like you’re enjoying yourself, anyway.” I found myself smiling. Not at the murder, but at Jamilla’s enthusiasm for the Job.
    Jamilla was still laughing. “Well, I do enjoy a good mystery. How’s your case going? Now that sucker is nasty. I’ve been thinking about it in my free moments. Somebody ‘murdering’ army officers by framing them for crimes they didn’t commit.”
    I brought her up to speed, detective to detective, then we talked about more pleasant subjects, like our time together in Arizona. Finally, she said she had to run, to get back to her case. I thought about Jam after I hung up the phone. She loved police work, and she said so. I did too, but the demons were getting to me.
    I grabbed another beer out of the fridge, then headed upstairs. I was still ruminating about Jamilla. Nice thoughts. Nothing but blue skies . . .
    I opened the bedroom door, then just stood there, shaking my head back and forth.
    Sitting there on my bed were two large glass jars. Pretty ones. Maybe antiques.
    They were filled with what looked to be about twelve hundred cat’s-eye marbles.
    I went over to the bed. Took one out.
    I rolled the marble between my thumb and forefinger. I had to admit that it felt precious.
    The Saturdays I still had left.
    How did I plan to use them?
    Maybe that was the biggest mystery of all.

Chapter 78
    I HAD THE feeling that I was being followed around Washington during the next few days.
Watched.
But I couldn’t seem to catch them at it. Either they were very good or I was completely losing it.
    On Monday I was back at work. All that week I put in my time at the precinct, on the Job. I made sure I