Tail Spin

said quietly, “Do you have a moment?”
    Sherlock shut down the small recorder in her bag as she left the room.
    Once outside in the wide hallway, Dr. Bingham asked, “Was he alert? Did he make sense?”
    Savich thought about how to describe one of the strangest interviews he’d ever tried to conduct. “He was alert, yes, and he made perfect sense, for the most part. But it was how he spoke of his patients, his family, his tennis partner—it was like there were no brakes between his thoughts and what came out of his mouth. He didn’t seem to realize he was saying outrageous things, vicious things, and he spoke so matter-of-factly. Without the requisite social buffing, I suppose his descriptions of his patients are painfully accurate.”
    Sherlock said, “But his disdain, Dillon, his contempt for them— I simply can’t imagine that’s how he normally thinks of his patients. Then he’d become himself again, I guess you could say. Serious, ready to fight to the death for the privacy of his patients. It was an amazing interview.”
    Dr. Bingham said, “Given his reputation, I would agree with that. It’s a very sad thing that’s happening to him, this dementia, and the resulting loss of sell. It’s a horrible thing, in fact, horrible.” Dr. Bingham shook their hands, walked away, his head down, hands in the pockets of his white coat, and Sherlock would swear she heard him humming.
    Sherlock said, “Dillon, do you think it’s possible Dr. MacLean’s having us on, maybe making a lot of this stuff up?”
    Savich shook his head. “He might have exaggerated part of it. I don’t know.” And to Agent Tomlin, he said, “Take good care of Dr. MacLean. This guy’s a huge target.”
    “No one gets past me,” Tomlin said. “You can count on that, Agent Savich.”
    Savich was aware of Tomlin staring at his wife until they entered one of the elevators at the end of the long corridor.
    Sherlock said as she pressed the lobby button, “Are you inclined to believe that Congresswoman McManus murdered her husband?”
    “We’ll find out soon enough.”
    “I wonder if that was why she went to see a shrink—you know, bad dreams, guilt, remorse.”
    “There’s that,” Savich said, and pulled her against him, kissing her until the elevator stopped at the third floor and a bleary-eyed intern staggered in.

NINETEEN
    Slipper Hollow
    Tuesday
    “It’s a beautiful day,” Rachael said, shading her eyes and staring up at the clear blue summer sky, the thready white clouds. She pushed her hair behind her ears, tugged at the skinny braid. “Hard to believe there’s so much actual bad out there in Uncle Gillette’s world.”
    “I fear bad is rampant in the land,” Jack said. “But it’s not right here.”
    “Unlike Uncle Gillette, I never thought of Slipper Hollow as confining, never considered it a place to escape from. It was always a sanctuary, a haven where I’d be safe. Of course, I was a kid. Looking back now, I recognize that Mom was restless, wanted to go out on her own.”
    He looked at the braid in her hair, plaited closer to her face this morning. When she leaned her head to the side, it cupped her cheek. He said, “I really like the braid.”
    “What? Oh, thank yon. Jimmy liked it, too.” Her voice shook a bit on his name.
    “For the most part,” Jack said, “I agreed with your father’s politics.”
    “I did, too. Can you believe Uncle Gillette washed and ironed our clothes?”
    “I nearly kissed him for it, but drew back at the last minute.”
    “I kissed him enough for both of us. I believe he’s gathering all the reports he can find about Jimmy’s death. There are even film clips from the funeral. He said he’d have it all together for us by this afternoon.”
    Jack nodded. He felt suddenly itchy felt his left elbow ache, something that tended to happen when something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t figure out what it could be. Slipper Hollow was a sanctuary, Rachael was right about that. It was cut off from the world; it was safe. Here they could enjoy the peace before they hunkered down to examine all the details of this psychotic situation. Psychotic? Jack thought about that for a moment. Odd, but psychotic was what came to mind. His elbow shouldn’t be itching, but it was, big-time. He chose to ignore it. “You’re not married,” he said.
    “I was close, once, but I found out he liked to gamble, and that was a deal breaker. My grandfather had that problem. I remember