Speaking in Tongues

car.”
    “She’s been here. But she left. I don’t know why.”
    “She leave a note?”
    “No. But her house keys’re here.”
    “Oh. Well.” Bett fell silent.
    Tate crossed his arms and rocked on the carpet for a moment. He walked to the window, looked at the barn through the rain. Returned.
    “Coffee?” he asked.
    “No, thank you.”
    Bett sat on the couch, crossed her thin legs, clad in tight black jeans. She wore a black silky blouse and a complicated silver necklace with purple and black stones. She sat in silence for a few moments then rose and examined the elaborate fireplace Tate’d had built several years ago. She caressed the mortar and with a pale pink fingernail picked at the stone. Her eyes squinted as she sighted down the mantelpiece. “Nice,” she said. “Fieldstone’s expensive.”
    She sat down again.
    Tate examined her from across the room. With her long, Pre-Raphaelite face and tangle of witchy red hair, Betty Susan McCall was exotic. Something Virginia rarely offered—an enigmatic Celtic beauty. The South is full of temptresses and lusty cowgirls and it has matriarchs galore but few sorceresses. Bett was a businesswoman now but beneath that façade, Tate Collier believed, she remained the enigmatic young woman he’d first seen singing a folk song in a smoky apartment on the outskirts of Charlottesville twenty-three years ago. She’d performed a whaling song a cappella in a reedy, breathless voice.
    It had, however, been many years since any woman had ensnared him that way and he now found himself feeling very wary. A dozen memories from the days when they were getting divorced surfaced, murky and unsettling.
    He wondered how he could keep his distance from her throughout this untidy family business.
    Bett’s eyes had disposed of the fireplace and the furniture in the living room and were checking out the wallpaper and molding. His eyes dogged after hersand he concluded that she found the place unhomely and stark. It needed more upholstered things, more pillows, more flowers, new curtains, livelier paint. He felt embarrassed.
    After several minutes Bett said, “Well, if her car’s gone she probably just went out to get something.”
    “That’s probably it.”
    Two hours later, no messages on either of their phones, Tate called the police.
    •   •   •
    The first thing Tate noticed was the way Konnie glanced at Bett.
    With approval.
    As if the lawyer had finally gotten his act together; no more young blondes for him. And it was damn well about time. This woman was in her early forties, very pretty. Smooth skin. She had quick eyes and seemed smart. Detective Dimitri Konstantinatis of the Fairfax County Police had commented once, “Tate, why’re all the women you date half your age and, lemme guess, a third your intelligence? If that. Why’s that, Counselor?”
    Konnie strode into the living room and stuck his hand out toward her. He shook the startled woman’s hand vigorously as Tate introduced them. “Bett, my ex-wife, this is Konnie. Konnie’s an old friend from my prosecuting days.”
    “Howdy.” Oh, the cop’s disappointed face said, so she’s the ex. Giving her up was one bad mistake, mister. The detective glanced at Tate. “So, Counselor, your daughter’s up ’n’ late for lunch, that right?”
    “Been over two hours.”
    “You’re fretting too much, Tate.” He poked a finger at him and said to Bett, “This fella? Was the sissiest prosecutor in the commonwealth. We had to walk him to his car at night.”
    “At least I could find my car,” Tate shot back. One of the reasons Konnie loved Tate was that the lawyer joked about Konnie’s drinking; he was now in recovery—no alcohol in four years—and not a single soul in the world except Tate Collier would dare poke fun at him about it. But what every other soul in the world didn’t know was that what the cop respected most was balls.
    Bett smiled uneasily.
    Tate and Konnie had worked together frequently when Tate was a commonwealth’s attorney. The somber detective had been taciturn and distant for the first six months of their professional relationship, never sharing a single personal fact. Then at midnight of the day a serial rapist–murderer they’d jointly collared and convicted was sentenced to be “paroled horizontal,” as the death row parlance went, Konnie had drunkenly embraced Tate and said that the case made them blood brothers. “We’re bonded.”
    “Bonded? What kind of