Jack & Jill

being the mess she’d warned me about when I came in. It was nicely lived-in. There was a sweet, charming display of drawings from the Truth School on one wall. A beautiful mud cloth on a stretcher also grabbed my eye.
    “So. What’s up, doc?” she asked. “What brings you outside the beltway?”
    “Honestly? I couldn’t sleep. I took a drive. I drove out this way. Then I had the bright idea that maybe we could cover some ground on the case … or maybe I just needed to talk to somebody.” I finally confessed, and it felt pretty good. Directionally good, anyway.
    “Well, that’s okay. That’s fine. I can relate to that. I couldn’t sleep myself,” she said. “I’ve been wound tight ever since Shanelle’s murder. And then poor Vernon Wheatley. I was pruning the plants, with
ER
on the television for background noise. Pretty pathetic, don’t you think?”
    “Not really. I don’t think it’s so strange.
ER
is good. By the way, you have a beautiful house out here.”
    I could see the living room TV set from the kitchen. A mammoth Sony playing the medical drama. A black retriever, a young dog, wandered in from the direction of a narrow hallway with oatmeal-colored carpeted stairs. “That’s Meg,” Christine told me. “She was watching
ER,
too. Meg loves a good melodrama.” The dog nuzzled me, then licked my hand.
    I don’t know why I wanted to tell her, but I did.
    “I play the piano at night sometimes. There’s a sun porch in our house, so the awful racket doesn’t bother the kids too much. Either that or they’ve learned to sleep right through it,” I said. “A little Gershwin, Brahms, Jellyroll Morton at one in the morning never hurt anyone.”
    Christine Johnson smiled, and seemed at ease with this kind of talk. She was a very self-assured person, very centered. I’d noticed that right from the first night. I had sensed it about her.
    “Damon has mentioned your nocturnal piano playing a few times at school. You know, he
occasionally
brags about you to the teachers. He’s a very nice boy, in addition to being a brainiac. We like him tremendously.”
    “Thank you. I like him a lot myself. He’s lucky we have the Sojourner Truth School nearby.”
    “Yes, I think he is,” Christine agreed. “A lot of D.C. schools are a complete disgrace, and so sad. The Truth is a small miracle for the children who attend.”
    “Your miracle?” I asked her.
    “No, no, no. A lot of people are responsible, least of all me. My husband’s law firm has contributed some guilt money. I just help to keep the miracle going. I
believe
in miracles, though. How long has it been since your wife died, Alex?” she suddenly changed gears. But Christine Johnson made the question conversational and low-key and very natural to ask, even if it wasn’t. Still, it took me by surprise. I sensed I didn’t have to answer if I didn’t want to.
    “It’s going to be five years soon,” I told her, partly holding my breath as I did. “This March, actually. Jannie was still a little baby. She was less than a year old. I remember coming in and holding her that night. She had no idea that she was comforting me.”
    The two of us were getting comfortable talking at the kitchen counter. We were both opening up quite a lot. Small talk at first. Then bigger talk. Sojourner Truth School killer talk. Maybe something helpful for the investigation. It went on like that until almost midnight.
    I finally told her I needed to be heading home. She didn’t disagree. The look in her eyes told me that she understood everything that had gone on here tonight, and all of it was okay with her.
    At the front door, Christine surprised me again. She pecked me on the cheek.
    “Come back, Alex,” she said, “if you need to talk again. I’ll be here tending to my shrubs in my ostentatious house.
Kwenda mzuri,”
she said.
    We left it like that.
Go well. A
strange tableau at a strange time in our lives. I had no idea whether her lawyer husband was home or not. Was he up in the bedroom sleeping? Was his name really George? Were they still together?
    It was another mystery to solve some other day, but not that day.
    On the drive home, I pondered whether I should feel bad about the unconventional, surprise visit to Christine Johnson’s house. I decided that I shouldn’t, that I wouldn’t even get embarrassed about it at a later date. She’d made that possible for me. She was incredibly easy to be around. Absolutely incredible. It was