O'Farrell's Law (30 page)

Lambert stared down at the man for several moments. “It's possible.” the psychologist said. “Possible but dangerous. On balance, you're going to need a hell of a lot of luck.”

“It's always dangerous,” Sneider said.

“I've got an idea,” McCarthy said. “A hell of an idea.”

“We cut adrift from O'Farrell?” Sneider anticipated, for once wrongly.

The Plans Director frowned at his deputy. “Christ, no!” he said. “Whatever made you think that?”

TWENTY-FIVE

J
ILL WASN'T
there when he got back to Alexandria. Three or four days earlier, before the sessions with Lambert, it would have thrown him for a loop, because he'd telephoned from Fort Pearce hours ahead, telling her of his supposed return on the afternoon British Airways flight. As it was, he contained the reaction to mild surprise. Jill was conscientious and often worked late at the clinic; hours sometimes, although he didn't think she would tonight because she knew he was getting back.

He made a drink and wandered about the house, feeling its familiarity wrap comfortingly around him. He felt safe, secure. The impression reminded him of what Lambert had said, at one of their sessions; the first, he thought, although he wasn't sure. The man had been right. Climbing under the bedcovers was just what he'd wanted to do; hide for a long time in the darkness, where no one could find him. Know he was there, even. He'd needed Lambert, needed the man more than he could calculate at this moment. Not that he could forget what had happened in London. It had been appalling and would always be with him. But Lambert had put it into perspective for him; he didn't have any problem with the word “accident” anymore. Because that was what it had been: an appalling, ugly accident. But accidents happened. How had Lambert put it? The very fact that this was the first, ever, showed how careful he was, how professional. Something like that.

It had been an incredible relief to be able to talk as he'd talked to Lambert. He knew the feeling was ridiculous, after so short a time, but he found it easy to think of Lambert as a friend, the way the man had asked him to.
Think of me as a friend, someone you can call and talk about anything, anytime
. O'Farrell wasn't sure that he would. It was all right this time, because of the circumstances. He'd needed the man. But to want to talk through things again might make Lambert think he was sonic soft of goofball, one of those goofballs who kept regular weekly appointments with a shrink and couldn't function without them. Then again, he might. It wasn't something he had to decide right now.

The tour inevitably ended in the den. The copied archive and the fading photograph that Jill had collected for him were still packaged, waiting to be refiled. He'd known the Agency kept tabs on him—it was a logical precaution—but he'd never guessed it was so complete. O'Farrell jerked his head up at a thought, gazing around the bookshelves and the furniture, at everything. Would the house be wired? With Jill out every day, the technical people would have had every opportunity to set a system up. O'Farrell started to move and then stopped, sitting back in his chair. He'd be wasting his time. The micro-technology now was so advanced that even an expert, like he was supposed to be, wouldn't find anything. It was an eerie thought; unsettling. He didn't bother with the files. The copied photograph was disappointing; his great-grandfather looked different, oddly, absurdly, more like the gunslingers he'd hunted than the lawman he had been.

O'Farrell checked his watch. He'd been home for over an hour. Where was Jill? An emergency, perhaps? But why hadn't she called, or had a secretary call?

The clinic receptionist was a bouncy black girl named Annabelle who said hi and how was London and she wanted to go there someday. If there
were
an electronic monitor, Langley wasn't going to be pleased, O'Farrell thought. Annabelle, confused, said Jill had left hours ago, around lunchtime, without saying where she was going. O'Farrell's immediate thought was Chicago, and he was relieved that Ellen was in the apartment. Ellen was as surprised as the receptionist at the clinic; she'd spoken to her mother the previous evening but there'd been no arrangements for her to fly up. O'Farrell said there had to be some misunderstanding at his end and it was unimportant, carrying on the conversation that was necessary. Billy was fine and Patrick had promised to clear up the arrears and maintain both the alimony and child support in the future, so she didn't think it was necessary to start any legal pressure at the moment. Patrick had gotten a job as a car salesman and the commissions were good and wasn't that terrific? O'Farrell sadly decided that Jill was right, that their daughter still loved the bastard, and agreed it was terrific if the payments kept coming. They would, said Ellen. This time Patrick had really promised. He was seeing Billy again, too. The previous weekend he'd bought the boy an electrically controlled car.

“So how was your trip?”

O'Farrell waited for the stomach drop, but there was nothing. He said, “Just work,” and his voice stayed perfectly even.

“Nothing exciting at all?”

O'Farrell swallowed. “Nothing,” he said, with more difficulty.

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too.”

O'Farrell gratefully replaced the receiver, filling his mind with the immediate problem. So where was Jill? She was a woman of habit, of regularity, someone who didn't take afternoons off without saying where she would be. He felt the beginnings of concern. And then of helplessness. He could try the police covering the district where the clinic was, to see if there'd been any reports of an accident, but what then? Ask for the car number to be posted and circulated, maybe, but they wouldn't do that, unless he had cause to think she'd been involved in some crime; there had to be dozens of husbands and wives late home every night. He was right, he told himself; there
were
dozens of husbands and wives late home every night, for all sorts of perfectly understandable reasons. So why the hell was he panicking!
Every night
wormed its way into his mind; Annabelle had said Jill left at lunchtime. Maybe Lambert would—O'Farrell started to think and then stopped, closing out the thought.

He went back to the kitchen and mixed another drink. He'd give her a little longer, another hour maybe. Then the police. Call other people at the clinic to see if she'd said anything to them. Who? O'Farrell squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember the names. Jill always seemed to be talking about people she worked with, so much so that he usually switched off, and now he couldn't remember the names. There was a Mary, he thought. And an Anne. Or was that the same person, Maryanne? And what about surnames, to look them up in the book? They wouldn't be at the clinic, not this late. The night staff would tell him, once he'd satisfied them who he was. Just another hour. Then he'd start calling around.

O'Farrell carried his drink with him to the front of the house, where he could look out onto the street. It was very quiet, fully dark now, all the parking spaces used up by returning residents without garages. There'd be the cars to clean over the weekend. O'Farrell looked forward to doing it; mundane, certainly, but familiar, secure by its very ordinariness.

Their garage door was electric, operated by an impulse from a control box in either vehicle, and it was the unlocking click and then the operational whir he heard, seconds before he saw Jill's car. The inner door from the garage led into the kitchen, and O'Farrell was already there when Jill came through. She seemed taken aback to see him and said, “Where the hell have you been!”

“Where the hell have
you
been?” he said. In his concern he sounded angry, which he wasn't.

“All the way out to Dulles is where I've been,” said Jill. “I decided on a surprise, so I went to meet the plane. And you weren't on it, weren't even booked, when I checked.”

O'Farrell reached out, pulling her to him, to gain time to think. And not just to think. He wanted to feel her, hold her close and know the reassurance of her being there. She'd always been there. Always would be. What would he do if Jill went out one morning and fired the ignition and literally exploded, simply didn't exist anymore!

She broke away from him. “Darling!” she said. “You're shaking! What's the matter? What's happened?”

“Nothing,” he said, recovering. “Tired, that's all. Would you believe it! I set out to surprise you!”

“What?”

“After I telephoned I realized I wasn't going to need as much clearing-up time after all. I got to the airport in time for the TWA flight through New York, so I canceled the original reservation and switched. Got here two hours earlier.”

“You know what?” said Jill, smiling and believing him. “We must have passed each other on the way to and from the airport.”

O'Farrell hugged her again, anxious for the closeness. Mouth in her hair, against her ear, he said, “That's what must have happened.” It hadn't occurred to her to disbelieve, to doubt.

“You're still shaking.”

“It isn't anything. Tiredness, like I said. Plane was crowded; tour groups.”

Jill moved farther into the kitchen, perching on a breakfast stool. “I had another idea, after the first surprise,” she confessed. “If you'd felt like it, I was going to suggest dinner somewhere instead of coming straight home.”

She was dressed in her newest suit, the one she had picked up at a Saks sale. “Great idea!” he said.

She shook her head. “You're tired.”

“Nothing a shower can't fix in five minutes.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “We're home now. I'll make something here.”

O'Farrell didn't want to disappoint her, but he thought it would be dangerous to press too hard. So much for the woman who never did anything unexpected! He said,

“Absolutely positive,” she said.

He didn't think she was. Effusively he said, “Tomorrow night! Anywhere you like!” knowing it wouldn't be the same, because there wouldn't be any spontaneity.

“We'll think about it,” she said.

It had to be a Lean Cuisine lasagna and she joined him in some wine, and O'Farrell gave the prepared account of what he was supposed to have done and seen in London. Telling her of his call to Ellen made the opening for Jill to talk of her time in Chicago while he had been away. Like O'Farrell, she wasn't impressed with Patrick's sudden responsibility. She put at three months the time it would take the man to lose the job or fail with the payments or possibly both. The drug scare at Billy's school was so long ago they didn't even talk about it anymore.

It was obvious Jill expected him to make love to her that night and he did, although it wasn't easy and he had to fake it. He didn't think she guessed and he was fairly sure she climaxed.

The following night they did go out, combining an orchestral recital at the Kennedy Center with dinner at the restaurant there, the river view making up for the food. The outing really did lack spontaneity, but Jill said it was wonderful. Abruptly O'Farrell said he really didn't know what he'd do without her, and Jill laughed and said he'd never have to find out, would he?

O'Farrell tried hard for the normality he craved. He found a reference to his great-grandfather in a history of western American exploration to add to the collection and on the first Saturday cleaned the cars, disturbed at how dirty and neglected they had become. There was even a rust stain on the Ford.

The normality didn't last long. The summons from Petty came the second week, a summons to Lafayette Square itself, which was unusual. When O'Farrell entered, he saw that Erickson wasn't present, which was even more unusual, but he hoped he knew the reason. The air was thick with the incenselike smell from the perpetual pipe.

“Just wanted to see how you were,” Petty announced at once.

“I'm fine,” O'Farrell said. Thinking that sounded too short, he added, “Thank you.”

“How did you get on with Lambert?”

It was a professional question, and O'Farrell thought the psychologist could have answered that more satisfactorily than himself. “I appreciated the advice, the chance to talk. It was very helpful.” Everything was coming out very stilted. Why was Petty delaying?

“You expect an official inquiry?”

At last! O'Farrell said, “I would have thought it automatic.”

“It isn't,” Petty said brusquely. “And there isn't going to be one.”

“Nothing!” Lambert had made it possible for him to live with himself, to accept the accident and justify what he'd done in the past, but O'Farrell still believed what he had told the man, that the Agency would from now on consider him unreliable.

“The circumstances are obvious,” the section chief said. “Nothing happened to embarrass anybody. So it's a closed matter. Over.”

O'Farrell's thoughts were disordered, refusing to form, and it was several moments before he could speak. Finally, stilted still, he said, “What then, precisely, is my position?”

Petty frowned, as if the question were difficult. “Your position?”

“Am I considered to be still”—O'Farrell stopped, seeking the laughably absurd description Lambert had used—“considered to be on the active roster?”

Petty's frown remained. “Of course. I thought I just made that clear.”

Once more there was a long pause, from O'Farrell. Then he said, “I see.”

“Something wrong?” Petty demanded.

“No … I … no, nothing.”

“What is it? You seem unsure.”

“Nothing,” O'Farrell reiterated. “Nothing at all.” A soldier, a lawman; that's what Lambert had called him. That's what he
was
.

That night Ellen telephoned from Chicago and asked them to come up at once.