Speaking in Tongues

just prior to her disappearance once more?”
    “Prior?”
    “Say, for the week before.”
    Tate glanced out the door, squinted. Looked again. The second detective came back into the cubicle. Tate asked, “Did you send a team to his house? I should have told you to send hostage rescue. Not regular officers. And don’t listen to him. Whatever he says, Megan’s there, in the house. Tell whoever’s on their way not to listen to him.”
    “He wasn’t home.”
    “What?” Tate asked. He didn’t understand. The officers couldn’t have gotten there so quickly.
    “I called him. He wasn’t home.”
    “You called him?” Tate’s heart stuttered.
    “Relax, sir, I didn’t tell him anything. Just asked him to give us a call about some parking tickets.” The slick young cop seemed proud of his cleverness.
    “Jesus Christ, you don’t have to tell him anything. Are you crazy?”
    “Sir, we don’t have to pay any attention to your story at all, you know. We’re doing you a favor.”
    Tate sat back, glanced into the hall again.
    After a moment he looked back at the officers again. Closed his eyes and sighed. “You win. Okay, you win.”
    “How’s that, sir?”
    “I’ll waive my rights and tell you everything I can think of. No confession but a full statement about mydaughter and Amy Walker. But I want some coffee and I’ve got to use the john.”
    They looked at each other and nodded.
    “I’m coming with you,” the first detective muttered.
    Tate laughed. “I was a commonwealth’s attorney for ten years. I’m not going to escape.”
    “I’m coming with you.”
    Tate gave a disgusted sigh and walked into the scuffed halls, which resembled a suburban grade school. He ambled to the men’s room and pushed inside. The detective was directly behind him.
    He stood at the urinal for an inordinately long time. When he’d finished and washed his hands he stepped to the door and pushed it open, bumping into the woman who was juggling three large law books and several pads of foolscap, which tumbled to the floor.
    “Sorry,” Tate said, bending down to pick up the books.
    Bett McCall glanced at him, said, “No problem.” And slipped the pistol out of her purse and into his hand.
    Tate didn’t even pause to think—he simply spun around, shoved the Smith & Wesson into the belly of the shocked detective and pushed him back into the men’s room as Bett calmly retrieved the books.
    In one minute Tate had gagged and cuffed the furious cop and relieved him of his gun. He tossed it in the wastebasket.
    “The cuffs too tight?” he asked.
    The detective stared angrily.
    “Are they too tight?”
    A nod.
    Tate snapped, “Good.”
    And stepped out into the corridor as a faint rumble arose in the john, like a low-Richter earthquake. The detective was trying to pull down the stall.
    When he’d looked into the hallway from the interrogation room he couldn’t believe that he’d seen her standing there, motioning with her head down the hall. “How did you get in here?” he asked as they walked briskly toward the exit.
    “Told them I was a lawyer.”
    “You cite a case or two?”
    “I could have.” She smiled. “I memorized the names of a couple on your desk. I was going to tell the desk sergeant I had to see my client because these new cases had just been put down.”
    “It’s ‘handed down,’ ” Tate corrected.
    “Oh. Glad he didn’t ask.”
    “I don’t know if we can get out that way. I came in under my own steam but the desk officer might know I’ve been arrested.” He looked back down the corridor. “Five minutes, tops, till they come looking.”
    She rearranged the books she was carrying so the cover showed. A school hornbook, Williston on Contracts.
    He laughed. “That’ll fool ’em.” Then asked, “You got my message?”
    She nodded. “I called Konnie and his assistant told me you’d been arrested. I couldn’t decide whether to get a lawyer or the gun. I figured we didn’t have time to wait for public defenders. My car’s outside.”
    The old Bett McCall might have meditated for days, hoping for guidance. The new one went right for the Smith & Wesson.
    They paused just before they turned the corner beside the guard station. He took a breath. “Ready?”
    “I guess.”
    “Let’s go.”
    Tate started forward, Bett at his side. The guard glanced at them but out they strolled without a hitch, signing the “time departed” line in the logbook scrupulously—one a phony