Jeffery Deaver - Speaking In Tongues

“What about your sister?”

“Definitely not her.”

“Why not?” Tate wondered aloud. He knew Susan cared very much for Megan. More than most aunts would for a niece. In fact, she’d always seemed almost jealous that Bell had a daughter and she didn’t.

“Because we don’t have any answers yet,” Bett responded. Then, after a few moments, she sighed. “This isn’t like her.” She glanced at the letter in her hand. Then shoved it deep into her purse.

Tate studied his wife’s face. Tate Collier had inherited several talents from the Judge. The main gift was, of course, a way with words, and the other, far rarer, was the ability to see the future in someone’s face. Now he looked into his ex-wife’s remarkable violet eyes, saw them narrow, alight on his and move on, and he knew exactly what was going through her mind. Debate is not just about words, debate is about intuition too. The advocate who can see exactly where his adversary is headed will always have an advantage, whatever rhetorical flourishes the opponent has in his repertoire.

He didn’t like what he now saw.

Bett stepped determinedly off the porch and into the backyard, toward the west barn, where her car was parked. He followed and paused on the shaggy lawn, which was badly in need of a mowing. He stared intently at the white streak of the energetic Dalmatian, which had finally forsaken the bone and was zipping through the grass like a greyhound.

Tate glanced at the old barn, alien and yet very familiar. Then his eyes fell on the picnic bench that he and Bell had bought at one of the furniture stores along Route 28. They’d used it only once-for the gathering after the funeral fourteen years ago. He remembered the events with perfect clarity now. It seemed like last week.

He saw Bett looking at the bench too. Wondered what she was thinking.

That had been an unseasonably warm November-just as odd as this April’s oppressive heat. He pictured Bett standing on the bench to unhook a Japanese lantern from the dogwood after the last of the family and well-wishers had left or gone to bed.

Today; Tate paused beside this same tree, which was in its expansive, pink bloom.

“Are you busy now?” she asked. “Your practice?”

“ Lot of little things. Only one big case.” He nodded at the house, where a paralyzing stack of documents for the Liberty Park argument rested. When they were married the house had been littered with red-backed legal briefs, forty or fifty pages long. The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Many of them were for death penalty cases Tate was prosecuting. Although he’d been the Fairfax County commonwealth's attorney Tate had often argued down in Richmond on behalf of other counties. “Have voice, will travel,” his staff had joked. His specialty had become special-circumstance murder cases-the official description of capital punishment cases.

These assignments and his eagerness to take such cases were a source of friction between husband and wife. Bett was opposed to the death penalty.

Death, Tate reflected, always seemed to lurk behind their relationship. Her sister Susan’s continual battle with serious heart disease, and the suicide of Susan’s husband, Harris. Then the death of Bett’s parents and Tate’s father and grandfather, all in the tragically short period of three years.

Tate kicked at piles of cornstalks.

“I have this feeling, Tate.” Bett’s hands lifted and dropped to her sides. “Do you understand what I mean?”

No. He didn’t. Tate was dogged and smart, but feelings? No, sir. Didn’t trust them for a minute. He saw how they got the people he’d prosecuted into deep, deep trouble. When they’d been married Bett lived on feelings. Intuition, sensations, impressions. And sometimes, it seemed, messages from the stars. Drove him crazy.

“Keep going,” he said.

She shrugged. “I don’t believe this.” She tapped her purse. Meaning the letter, he supposed.

“Why do you think that?”

“I was remembering something.”

“Hmm?” he offered noncommittally.

“I found a bag under Megan’s bed at home. When I was cleaning last week. There was a soap dish in it.”

He noticed the woman’s tears. He wanted to step close, put his arm around her. Tate tried to remember the last time he’d held her. Not just bussed cheeks but actually put his arms around her, felt her narrow shoulder blades beneath his large hands. No memory came to mind.

“It was a joke between us. I never had a dish in my bathroom. The soap got all yucky, Megan said. So she bought this Victorian soap dish. It was for my birthday. Next week. There was a card too. I mean, she wouldn’t buy me a present and a card and then do this.”

Wouldn’t she? Tate wondered. Why not? When the pressure builds to a certain point the volcano blows-and it doesn’t care about the time of year or who’s picnicking on the slopes, drunken lovers or churchgoers. Any lawyer who’s done domestic relations work will testify to that.

“You think someone made her do this? Or that it’s a prank?” Tate asked.

“I don’t know She might’ve been drinking again. I checked the bottles at home and they didn’t look emptier but… I don’t know.”

“That’s not much to go on,” her ex-husband said.

Suddenly she turned to him and spoke. “It’s not a hundred percent thing we’ve got, Megan and me. There’re problems. Of course there are. But our relationship deserves more than this damn letter. More than her running out…“ She crossed her arms, gazed into the fields again. She repeated, “Something’s wrong.”

“But what? Exactly? What do you think?”

“I don’t know,”

“Well, what should we do?”

“I want to go look for her,” Bett said determinedly. “I want to find he r.”

Which is exactly what he’d seen in her purple eyes a few moments earlier. This is what he’d known was coming.

Yet now that he thought about it he was surprised. This didn’t sound like Bett McCall at all. Bett the dreamer, Bett the tarot card consulter. Passive, she’d always floated where the breezes took her. Forrest Gump’s feather… The least likely person imaginable to be a mother. Children needed guidance, direction, models. That wasn’t Bett McCall. When he’d heard from Megan that Bett had become engaged last Christmas Tate was surprised only that it had taken her so long to accept what must have been her dozenth proposal since they’d divorced. When they’d been married she’d been charming and flighty and wholly ungrounded, relying on him to provide the foundation she needed. He’d assumed that once they’d split up she’d quickly find someone else to play that role.

He wondered if he was standing next to a Betty Susan McCall different from the one he’d been married to (and wondered too if she was thinking the same about him).

“Bett,” he said to reassure her, “she’s fine. She’s a mature young woman. She vented some steam and’s going off for a few days. I did it myself when I was about her age. Remember?” He doubted that she did but, surprising him, she said, “You made it all the way to Baltimore.”

“And I called the Judge and he came to get me, A two-day runaway Look, Megan’s had a lot to deal with. I think the soap dish is the key.”

“The dish?”

“You’re right-nobody’d buy a present and a card and then not give them to you. She’ll be back for your birthday. And know what else?”

“What?”

“There’s a positive side to this. She’s brought up some things that we can talk about. That ought to be talked about.” He nodded-toward the house, where his letter rested like a bloody knife.

Logic. Who could argue with it?