John Sandford - Shock Wave

“All right. We’re about done up here and we didn’t find much to help. Just another negative,” Virgil said. He told Barlow about the missing camo.

“What does it all mean?” O’Hara asked.

“It means we may have to go to my Plan B,” Virgil said.

“ Your plan B?” Hands on her hips. “Wait a minute, buster…”

John Haden found himself in something of a trap. Not a legal trap, but a relationship trap. Sally Wyatt had come over and had thrown her… psyche… at him, after she’d come back from the scene of her husband’s death. She’d been overcome with remorse, both at his death and about her relationship with Haden.

She still loved him, she said, but this death changed everything: she needed space to think, she needed time to grieve, she needed to be alone with her children. She needed help. He calmed her down, as much as he could, he let her weep, he gave her the name a grief counselor he’d heard about from another instructor whose wife had died.

“She’s supposed to be really good, and as I understand it, she really did help Jeremy get through his wife’s death,” he’d told her, sitting beside her on the couch, one hand on her shoulder. “You think you have to go through it on your own, but you don’t. It helps to have somebody who understands the fault lines of family tragedy.”

As soon as she was out the door, he said aloud, “Jesus Christ, this is gonna be a pain in the ass.”

The trap part of the relationship was… he needed to keep her close, but he wouldn’t want Flowers to see them together. Actually, he didn’t want anyone to see them together, at least for a while, and that wasn’t easy, in a small city like Butternut Falls. So he needed her close for strategic reasons-their potential marriage-but at the same time, for tactical reasons, he now needed a little distance. At least until Flowers got out of town.

He got Flowers’s cell phone number off his own cell phone and called him.

“Virg: you never called to tell me what happened out there,” he complained. “Was Bill the guy? We’re hearing that up at the school.”

“We’re about ninety-eight percent and climbing,” Flowers said. “The thing we don’t know is, was it an accident, or was it on purpose? There’s no question that most of the remaining Pelex must’ve been touched off. There’re pieces of that farmhouse in fuckin’ Farmington. And probably far-off Faribault.”

“To say nothing of freakin’ Fairmont,” Haden said. “Well, you know what? I’m still not sure. So when you get to a hundred percent, let me know.”

“I’ll do that,” Flowers said. “You could buy me another beer or two.”

“You’re on,” Haden said.

When he got off the phone, Haden got a half-full bottle of red wine from the fridge, popped the vacuum cork, and carried the bottle over to the couch, where he could think.

This whole thing would have to be carefully handled. He’d made Sally fall in love with him-that wasn’t difficult. She’d needed somebody, in the biggest emotional crisis of her life, and there he was. He’d been funny, and sensitive, and sexy, had listened thoughtfully to her complaints about Wyatt, and to her intellectual and political positions.

Had argued with her, from time to time, had confessed that as a mathematician, he was sometimes pulled toward the arguments made by the Republicans about the economy. He’d only done that, though, after hearing that her father had been a longtime Republican county chairman, and figuring out that her father was a major force in her life. The old man was, thankfully, dead, so at least Haden wouldn’t have to deal with that.

But.

The big But.

When their relationship came out in the open, there’d be talk. There was always talk, especially in the academic community. He could handle that, as long as it was off in the future… when the bomber had faded, at least a bit, from people’s concerns.

He took another long pull at the wine.

Almost done, now.

Then… well, he knew she was going to be a pain in the ass. He’d finished the bottle of wine, and then had driven to the grocery store and stocked up on Smart Dogs and Greek yogurt, had gotten a premade black-bean salad and a baguette and a six-pack of Dos Equis, stopped at the coffee shop for a cappuccino. He’d had a quiet dinner, took to the couch again, to digest it, then spent ninety minutes at the Awareness Center, his yoga school.

He was in the parking lot, throwing his yoga bag back in the car, when his cell phone rang. He looked at the LCD: Sally Wyatt.

“Sally? Everything okay?” he asked. He let concern seep into his voice.

“Oh, God, that man was here. That agent. He thinks… I don’t know what he thinks. I’m worried about… things.”

“You want me to come over?”

“Better not. The neighbors are having a barbeque, there are people all over the street. I really don’t need any… questions.”

He mentally sighed in relief.

“Could I come over to your house?” she asked. Nearly a whimper. She was falling apart. “I sent the kids to my mom’s, until I could get the funeral stuff taken care of.”

“I didn’t think… Never mind. Come over, please.” He got off the phone and groaned, and then half-laughed. He’d almost said, “I didn’t think there was enough left to bury.” Christ, that would have been sticking his foot into it. He had to be more careful. Thinking about it, he started laughing again.

Boom!

She was there in ten minutes. When she came through the door, he went for a little squeeze, a little hug, a quick kiss on the neck, but she fended him off and perched on his easy chair. She said, “John, my God, what am I going to do? I’ve got no money, I’ve got nothing, the funeral expenses… and now, maybe I need a lawyer. This Flowers, he kept asking about what I thought about PyeMart and if I’d noticed anything going on in Bill’s workshop. He thinks I was involved.”

“I’ve talked to him,” Haden said. “He thinks he’s a pretty smart guy, but he’s not as smart as he thinks he is. What you do is, you’re just honest. You don’t know anything about anything. If they make an actual accusation, tell them you need a public defender. But, I really don’t think it’ll come to that. Bill was obviously unbalanced. It’s not something that two people would do.”

“I can’t believe… I lived with Bill fourteen years. He could be a jerk, but I don’t see this. I’m, I’m…”

“Well, you know… the prospect of that money,” Haden said.

She looked away from him. “That’s something else that Flowers said. Virgil said. He tells me to call him Virgil, like he’s a friend of mine, but I can tell he isn’t. I can tell he’s up to something… .” She trailed off, put her face in her hands for a moment.

He was sitting on the couch opposite her, and asked, “What was the other thing he said?”

“He said that if the town development went back the way it was, I’d be rich,” she said. She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, one after the other. “He thought that might be a motive. He thought that was Bill’s motive, and he thought it might be mine.”

“What’d you say?” Haden asked.

“I told him that Bill didn’t care that much about money,” she said. “When the town changed direction, he just laughed it off. Said he didn’t need the money for another thirty years, and by then, it’d be even more valuable.”

“And what’d he say?”

“He said that was interesting,” she said.

Haden looked at her for a moment, and then asked, “When did you send the kids away?”

“Right after the bomb… right away. Oh my God, they’re going to be so messed up. Bill would come over every other day, take them out. He really was a good father. Good as he could be, anyway, you know… He never even said good-bye to them.”