Margaret Maron - The Right Jack

"Val-" said Nauman.

"No, Oscar, don't. I have to workt his out, because that's what bothers me. We.were just as positive our views were moral, that we were working for something good even if the way we worked…" She looked at them, her face ravaged. "Did we set precedents?"

"You're afraid you created an atmosphere that made violence an acceptable part of civil disobedience?" Sigrid asked.

"Yes!" Val said gratefully. "And not just public protest, but private, too. Has it gone full circle?"

Her dark eyes filled with tears again. "Is that what killed John?" she asked hoarsely.

"Of course not," said Oscar. He crossed the Peruvian rug to put his arms around Val and hold her tightly while she wept softly against his chest.

Sigrid picked up the poker and punched at the fire. Carefully she raked the fiery chunks into a neat pile, then leveled them again into a glowing bed. Only the week before, she had flown down to North Carolina for the funeral of a close cousin and Val's grief rekindled her own so abruptly that she could not turn around and watch.

Presently the sobs behind her subsided. Val blew her nose and came back to the chair by the hearth.

"Sorry, guys," she said shakily. "I keep thinking I'm cried out and then something sets me off again."

Nauman shoved his chair closer to hers and held out her forgotten cup of tea.

She took a deep swallow. "Don't you want more coffee, Sigrid? I'm sure they've probably made a fresh pot by now."

"No, thank you. Describe Fred Hamilton, please." Her words were blunt and businesslike.

"Yes, of course. Let's see… about six feet tall, dark hair that he wore shoulder-length, muscular build. The sexiest eyes I've ever seen. I was teasing John about that-was it just last night? God! It seems so long ago."

Again her eyes pooled and Sigrid felt such a rush of compassion that she was almost paralyzed. "You and your husband discussed Hamilton last night? Who brought him up? You or he?"

"He did," Val replied, puzzled by her harsh tone. "He asked if I remembered Fred and I said yes, he was a smolderings expot. We were kidding about it; you know how it is."

Only as an outside observer did Sigrid know that teasing intimacy between wife and husband. She nodded stiffly.

"We were on our way out to the Maintenon while we were talking and I asked John if he thought Fred and Brooks Ann would ever turn themselves in-so many have over the years, you know-and John…"

She frowned as she remembered. "He said that it was odd I should ask or something like that and then a cab stopped for us and we wound up talking about other things."

"But the way he said it?" Sigrid probed.

Val nodded her sleek brown head. "The way he said it was as if he'd heard something about Fred recently."

Sigrid leaned back in the deep leather chair. "Val, I asked you before but I want you to think again very carefully. Did you converse with Ted Flythe last night?"

"No, why?"

Sigrid made a noncommittal gesture and Val looked to Nauman for enlightenment.

He shrugged. "I suppose she wants to know if he reminded you of anybody besides that Tris Yorke."

"Reminded? You think Ted Flythe is Fred Hamilton?" They could almost see her mind sorting and comparing. "They're both the same height and coloring," she mused. "Flythe has a beard and Fred was always clean-shaven with much longer hair."

"You said Hamilton had sexy eyes," said Sigrid. "One of my officers said the same about Flythe's."

"They're similar," Val admited, "but I don't think he's Fred."

"He'd be the right age," said Nauman, playing devil's advocate. "Early forties, I'd put him."

"No," Val said, with conviction. "I know it's been ages, but even if Flythe is Fred, why would he come back and kill John after all this time? They had an ideological split, not a blood feud."

" Hamilton is still wanted by the FBI," Sigrid told her. "The amnesty program covered draft evaders, not murderers. Even if the deaths of those children were unpremeditated, it's still manslaughter.

There's no statute of limitations to run out. Your husband might be one of the few who could definitely identify him."

"But I knew Fred, too. Why wasn't I killed?"

"You said you were never in SDS. You weren't close to anyone in the group except your husband," Sigrid said. "He might not remember you."

"People change in sixteen or seventeen years, Val," said Nauman.

Sigrid flipped through her earlier notes. "Flythe told me he graduated from a now defunct college in Michigan. Carlyle Union. Does that ring any bells?"

"No."

"He also said that he's guided several tour groups around Europe. Did you and Professor Sutton ever travel overseas?"

"Sure, but not with any tour group. We always rented a car and poked around on our own."

"What about some of the others who were supposed to have been killed in that Red Snow explosion? Could Flythe be any of them?"

"That I can't help with at all." Val shook her head. "Fred and Brooks Annw ere the only two from McClellan as far as we ever heard. There was a black girl from the Panthers whom we'd met at one of the rallies, but I think her body was definitely identified. Oh, and there was a kid-what was his name? Victor? Victor Earle! He was with Red Snow near the end, but he wasn't in the lake house when the rest were killed. We heard he was in Canada or Sweden."

"What happened to him?"

"They couldn't prove he'd taken part in the bombing of that day-care center and draft board in Chicago, but when he came back to the States in the mid-Seventies, they hit him with drug smuggling and possession of illegal arms or something. I'm pretty sure he stood trial and drew a sentence, though he must be out by now." She shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry. I just can't remember. It was so long ago. Anyhow, Victor couldn't be Flythe. He was much shorter and already starting to lose his hair on top."

Nevertheless, Sigrid added Victor Earle's name below Tristan Yorke's on her short list. It wouldn't hurt to learn Earle's whereabouts. The odds weren'tf avorable that he was involved; still, he might recognize Flythe or be reminded of someone who looked like Flythe. And it wouldn't hurt to ask for Fred Hamilton's prints either. They had to start somewhere. Sooner or later, surely something would connect if Sutton were the intended target.

They discussed the possibilities a few minutes more and might have talked even longer except that the door opened abruptly and a sobbing little boy hurled himself across the room and flung himself onto Val's lap. His face was swollen with sleep and his hair was as rumpled as his striped pajamas.

"I want Daddy to come home," he cried. "I don't want him to be dead. I want Daddy to come home!"

"So do I, Jacky," his mother murmured brokenly, smoothing his dark hair, so like hers. "So do I."

The rain had subsided to a cool, fragrant mist when Nauman finally parked on the deserted street outside Sigrid's walled

garden. Her bandaged arm made getting out of the low car awkward, so he held the door and offered a strong hand up.

The streetlight down the block glistened on the wet leaves plastered along the sidewalk and haloed Bauman's silver hair as he unlocked her gate and handed back the key.

Moved by an inexplicable need, Sigrid touched his face with her fingertips and lifted her lips to his for a long intense moment.

Naument held her thin body as lightly as if she were a woodland creature that might suddenly turn and flee and looked down into her troubled gray eyes. In the six months that he had known her, it was the first time that she had initiated an embrace.

"Hello?" he said, pleased and yet puzzled.

"I-It's-Oh damn it all, Nauman!" she murmured with her face against his shoulder.