Jack & Jill

husband. She’s doing real fine for herself.
    What did she say her husband’s name was—
George?
George the lawyer lobbyist. George the
rich
lawyer lobbyist.
    There was only one car in the driveway. Her car. The garage door was closed. I could picture another car in there, maybe a Lexus. Maybe a gas grill for cookouts, too. Power lawn mower, leaf blower, maybe a couple of mountain bikes for weekend fun.
    I shut off the engine and got out of my car.
    The dragonslayer comes to Mitchellville.

CHAPTER
54

    I WAS DEFINITELY CURIOUS about Christine Johnson, and maybe it was a little more complicated than that.
You like her, don’t you, Daddy? Maybe? Yes, I did like her—a lot.
At any rate, I felt as if I needed to see her, even if it made me feel tremendously awkward and foolish. A good thought struck me as I climbed out of the car:
how much more foolish to walk away.
    Besides, Christine Johnson was part of the complex homicide case I was working on. There was a logical enough reason for me to want to talk to her. Two students from her school had been murdered so far. Two of her babies. Why that school? Why had a killer come there? So close to my home?
    I walked to the front door and was actually glad that all the shimmering houselights were turned on bright. I didn’t want her husband, or any of the neighbors in Mitchellville, to spot me approaching the house in a cloak of shadows and darkness.
    I rang the bell, heard melodious chimes, and waited like a porch sculpture. A dog barked loudly somewhere inside the house. Then Christine Johnson appeared at the front door.
    She had on faded jeans, a wrinkled yellow crewneck sweater, white half-socks, and no shoes. A tortoiseshell comb pulled her hair back to one side, and she was wearing her glasses. She looked as if she were working at home. Still working at this late hour.
Peas in a pod, weren’t we?
Well, not exactly. I was a long way from my pod, actually.
    “Detective Cross?” She was surprised; understandably so. I was kind of surprised to be standing there myself.
    “Nothing has happened on the case,” I quickly reassured her. “I just have a few more questions.” That was true.
Don’t lie to her, Alex. Don’t you dare lie to her. Not even once. Not ever.
    She smiled then. Her eyes seemed to smile as well. They were very large and very brown, and I had to stop staring at them immediately. “You do work too late, too hard, even under the current circumstances,” she said.
    “I couldn’t turn this horrible thing off tonight. There are two cases, actually. So here I am. If this is a bad time, I’ll stop by at the school tomorrow. That’s no problem.”
    “No, come on in,” she said. “I know how busy you are. I can imagine. Come in, please. The house is a mess, like our government, all the usual boilerplate copy applies.”
    She led me back through an entranceway with a cream marble floor and past the living room with its comfortable-looking sectional sofa and lots of earth colors: sienna, ocher, and burnt umber.
    There was no guided tour, though. No more questions about why I was there. A little too much silence suddenly. My chi energy was draining off somewhere.
    She took me into the huge kitchen. She went to the refrigerator, a big, double-door jobbie that opened with a loud
whoosh.
“Let me see, we’ve got beer, diet cola, sun tea. I can make coffee or hot tea if you’d like. You
do
work too hard. That’s for sure.”
    She sounded a little like a teacher now. Understanding, but gently reminding me that I might have areas of improvement.
    “A beer sounds pretty good,” I told her. I glanced around the kitchen, which was easily twice the size of ours at home. There were rows of white custom cabinets. A skylight in the ceiling. A flyer on the fridge promoting a “Walk for the Homeless.” She had a very nice home—she and George did.
    I noted an embroidered cloth on a wall stretcher. Swahili words:
Kwenda mzuri.
It’s a farewell that means “go well.” A gentie hint? Word to the wise?
    “I’m glad to hear you’ll have a beer,” she said, smiling. “That would mean you’re at least
close
to knocking off for the day. It’s almost ten-thirty. Did you know that? What time is it on
your
clock?”
    “Is it that late? I’m real sorry,” I said to her. “We can do this tomorrow.”
    Christine brought me a Heineken and iced tea for herself. She sat across from me at an island counter that subdivided the kitchen. The house was far from