Cold Snap (31 page)

"You can start out on the easier trails,"
said the cocky minister, making them sound like lanes for toddlers.
"Just to get your balance back."

"I'll bear that in mind," Ari answered
noncommittally.

They had retreated to the living room. Bill
brought out a tray of white porcelain cups. Behind him was his
wife, bearing a silver thermal coffee carafe. She was immediately
battered by compliments from all directions, which she accepted
with seemly diffidence. She was surprised when only half of the
guests expressed a desire for coffee.

"It would keep me up all night," Becky
fretted, as though ashamed of turning down the offer.

"I'll stick with my digestif," said
Turnbridge, raising his half-empty glass of Grand Marnier. He had
already downed several glassfuls (Ari was keeping track) and was
several shades redder than when he had finished his supper. Ethan's
former boss avoided looking at Rebecca, but that entailed turning
his head in Mangioni's direction. Staring straight ahead brought
him to Ari, whereupon he lowered his eyes introspectively and
tapped his wife's knee like a man checking his wallet. Did he know
about Ari's meeting with Bruce Turner? Did he in fact order Turner
to warn him off the search for Diane's father? Was he innocent, or
putting on a show of innocence? Or was he just so enamored with
Madame Mumford's cooking that he was throwing caution to the wind?
Ari watched as Bill refilled Turnbridge's glass. A few more of
those and he might let slip a clue. He might also fall down
drunk.

Ari turned to Mangioni. "I was wondering if
you could tell me about this footwear that I have seen dangling
from the power lines."

A stereophonic chuckle came from Karen and
Fred.

"Don't you have that in Italy?" Karen said,
carefully reinforcing his background story.

"Indeed we do, and in other countries as
well—including France, alas. But there seems to be much more of
that sort of thing here."

Steadying his cup as Bill came through with a
tray of small, delicate pastries, the police officer said: "There's
all sorts of names and all sorts of meanings. 'Shoe tossing',
'shoefiti', 'shoe flinging'…. Boy Scouts do it when they leave
camp. Soldiers do it when they're shipped out of a base. Then
again, it can also advertise a crack house, in which case they're
called 'crack tennies'. Or it can mark the boundary of a gang's
territory."

"I happened to drive past a university campus
the other day and noticed quite a few dangling shoes. Is it drugs?
Gangs?"

"Kids being kids, I'd say," Mangioni said
cautiously, ignoring the laughter around him, as though fearful Ari
would race back to Sicily and spread stories about America's
collegiate Mafiosi.

Diane was leaning up against her mother,
fiddling with some portable electronic game. Ari took note of her
feet plopped on his new Pelham Blue throw pillow. But those feet
sprang to action, whipping around and planting themselves on the
floor, when Bill arrived with the dessert tray. She chose a finger
éclair. Her eyes rolled in wonder when she bit into it. Now the
real meal was about to begin! She began shuffling more desserts
into the plate that Bill, with providential foresight, had provided
her.

"I am very pleased you enjoyed your meal,
Deputy Marshal Karen," said Ari. This was the first time he had
mentioned her occupation among his guests. Only Ben Torson, Becky
Torson and Pastor Grainger knew her. Rebecca looked at her with
renewed interest. Turnbridge choked on his Gran Marnier. Exactly
how many cops were in the room at this moment? Ari might have
informed him that he, too, had played the cop on occasion, but that
would have blown his cover entirely.

Karen glowered at him briefly. If anyone
asked how she had met Ari, she would be forced to concoct a story
on the cuff.

"I don't suppose the U.S. Marshal Service
gets involved in missing person cases," Rebecca asked hopefully.
Diane pricked up her ears and stared at Karen.

"Not really...I mean, not often...I've never
dealt with an MP who wasn't a kid or elderly and demented." She
turned to Fred. "Have you?"

Turnbridge choked again. His wife began
pounding him on the back. Ari began wondering if he would have to
put in a call for an ambulance.

"I don't know if Ari said anything to you
about it, but my husband has been missing for...some time."

"You didn't file a report with us?" Mangioni
asked, startled.

Rebecca responded with an equally startled
look in his direction. Ari shifted uncomfortably. Seeing Rebecca
and Mangioni talking together earlier, he had assumed the topic had
already been raised. She must have been busy retracting the
grievance she had made to Mangioni and Jackson when a battered Ari
brought roses to her daughter.

Becky Torson cringed when Bill Mumford
lowered the dessert tray in her direction. While her husband was in
Iraq, she had gorged herself on fear and food. Once he was home,
the fear departed, but the weight she had gained lingered.

"I lost a pound last week. I'd like to keep
it off." She smiled ruefully. "Of course, I pigged out at
dinner."

When the tray was shifted in Ben's direction,
he politely waved it away.

"Just because I can't eat it doesn't mean you
can't enjoy—"

"If you can't, I won't," said her
husband.

Ari took a Neapolitan and savored it between
sips from his cognac.

"I hate to be a pest," said Rebecca. "But
it's so unlike Ethan to run off like this..."

"He 'ran off'?" Mangioni inquired. It had
been an unfortunately choice of words. There was an embarrassed
silence as the guests envisioned the proverbial 'other woman'.

"He might have," said Rebecca, flustered.
"But I think I know him well enough to know he would have told me,
one way or the other."

"Except he sneaked back in the house, once,
and logged into the computer," Diane chirped through custard-coated
lips. "I figured out Daddy's password."

"I'm sure Microsoft has you shortlisted as a
future director," Karen quipped.

"No, I want to be a veterinarian." She lifted
her nose in Ari's direction. "So I can take care of sick cats."

"Is Marmaduke ill?" Ari asked, unable to hide
his concern.

"No, but he will be if he keeps running off
to strange places."

Ari had thought he had reached—well, not an
accommodation, but at least a truce with the girl. If so, it had
expired after an indecently short interval. Nearly overcome by an
impulse to shake the smirk off Diane's face, he smiled.

"A password is a very important thing." This
was Turnbridge, who was so still he might have been mimicking
stone.

"I know, that's why I only showed it to Mom
and Mr. Ciminon."

Ari tried to focus on Bristol Turnbridge, but
was pestered by slicing and dicing glances from Karen.

OK, Ari, what have you gotten yourself into,
now?

But these visual slashes were not as
obtrusive as the long, the very long, look that Turnbridge directed
at him. It was as if he was trying to see into Ari's soul. Ari did
not think he was a very deep man, so he could not delve very deeply
into others. But he was astute enough to see just below the
surface. That was where the danger lay.

"And what did you discover on Ethan
Wareness's computer, Mr. Ciminon?"

"Ari, please."

Turnbridge's lips bunched into something
resembling a lopsided grape.

"I only stumbled across some items Ethan was
researching for his current employer," Ari lied. "I don't think
they would matter to you, since he no longer works for you. I
didn't see any references to STS."

Diane and her mother exchanged glances.
Rebecca tapped her index finger to her lips.

It appeared that Turnbridge's wife understood
the best remedy for her husband's bad moods was to avoid them
entirely. She shifted daintily to the side and took up a magazine
Ari had placed on a coffee table to keep it from looking so bare:
Chi.

"Hey, what do you think you're up to?"
Mangioni had twisted around to look at Ari. His tone was both
pleasant and threatening. Sort of like Saddam Hussein just before
he grabbed you by the testicles. "This kind of sounds like police
business. Maybe you should have called us."

"I invited you to supper," Ari said.

"Cm'on, Ari, you trying to suborn me? That's
the word they use at the Academy."

"I would never be such a derelict," Ari
asserted, then turned to see Karen giving him a full frontal glare.
Perhaps this dinner had not been such a good idea.

As if to emphasize this possibility, a loud
clatter of plates drew Ari's attention to the dining room. Bill
Mumford gave him a deferential and mildly accusatory nod, as if he
was warning the host against tossing acid into the social stew,
thus ruining the perfect culinary prelude his wife had so arduously
prepared for him.

"Mr. Ciminon has been kind enough to help
me," Rebecca rose to Ari's defense. "I may have been mistaken when
I thought he was going to consult with the police, but he has set
my mind at rest on at least...one important matter."

"Well, you haven't reported him missing, and
his workplace hasn't reported it, or I would have seen it on the
blotter." Mangioni's tone suggested the logical conclusion was that
Ethan was buried in a basement or some isolated back forty.

"You didn't invite me here as part of your
'investigation', I hope," Turnbridge said to Ari.

"Indeed not. I would have gone over to talk
to Matt Mackenzie if that was the case."

"He's nothing," said Turnbridge with a
dismissive wave. "Different department."

"But a neighbor who might have some insight
into the situation," Ari said. In fact, he never considered asking
Matt about Ethan because Tracy Mackenzie had already told him
everything she knew about the disappearance, which was next to
nothing.

"This is America," slurred Turnbridge, the
multiple glasses of Gran Marnier coiling around his cerebral
cortex, squeezing out common sense. One could only hope that his
wife was the designated driver. "Neighbors don't talk to each
other."

"No?" Ari nodded at Rebecca.

Heedlessly, Turnbridge aimed his finger at
Diane. "Passwords are very dangerous things. They should not be
given out frivolously."

Diane, usually so clever, only now realized
her admission was a misstep. "It wasn't frivolous. My mother asked
me."

"You don't know if it was your father who
logged in. It could have been..."

"Who?" Mangioni seemed on the verge of
pulling out his notepad. Or his gun, although Ari detected no
armory under his sports jacket.

"Anyone. You really don't know what you're
getting into," Turnbridge said, suddenly pleading, his gaze dancing
frantically across the room. "I'm sure Ethan is fine. Just leave
him alone."

"What exactly would we be getting into?"
Mangioni asked. Ari was content to let him do the questioning.

"I don't know," Turnbridge confessed. "That's
what worries me." He looked at Karen and Fred. "You're Federal. You
wouldn't want anyone snooping into your business, would you?"

"Hey, don't drag us into this," said Fred,
whose call to duty did not include 'beyond'.

"What's being Federal got to do with
anything?"

ISAF, thought Ari, working hard not to grit
his teeth. Or someone working for them. But he still found it
difficult to link an office in downtown Kabul to the Richmond
suburbs.

"I'm just giving that as an example," said
Turnbridge defensively.

"What kind of sample—ouch!" Diane, cut off by
a pinch from her mother, threw herself back into the cushions.

But even Diane, who had less of an idea of
what was happening than anyone else in the room, could see
Turnbridge was lying.

Everyone in the room jumped when Karen
snarled viciously:

"Ari..."

Dismayed by the angst that had entered the
room like some malevolent, bloodthirsty ghost, Becky Torson smiled
and said: "Awwwoooh..."

It dawned on Karen that her social graces had
lapsed badly. With a will of iron she transformed her grimace into
cheer. She suddenly looked like Bozo the Clown.

"Oh Ari, you're so sweet. All these crazy
stories, just for our entertainment. You've really put yourself
out. It's like Mystery Dinner Theater! Isn't it? 'Whodunit' and all
that?"

She stopped when Fred gave her a hard
nudge.

"Yes!" said Turnbridge, only moderately
relieved. "Listen...Ari...could I have a private word with
you?"

"Me, too," said Mangioni.

"Count me in," Karen snapped, then smiled
sweetly.

"Ahem."

They turned to Pastor Grainger. Quiet and
observant on a fold-out chair against the wall, everyone had
forgotten about him.

"I think I might like a word, also," he
said.

Rebecca raised her hand. "As one of the
parties in question," she reasoned.

"Hey, don't leave me out," said Ben,
half-laughing. Too late, his wife made a shushing noise.

Ari's attempt at improvising revelations from
Turnbridge had exploded with catastrophic force.

"Very well, then," he said, glancing at his
watch. There was no place downstairs where private conversations
would not be overheard. Upstairs was out of the question. It would
have exposed the bachelor-like chaos of his existence. And there
would be only two places to sit: his computer chair and the
mattress that served as his bed. That left the garage. Unheated,
the cold would encourage briefness—though of course Ari himself
would be stuck out there for the duration.

He stood.

"I will let you decide among you the order of
your attendance."

This drew protests from his guests, which he
promptly ignored.

He was intercepted in the passage by Madame
Mumford, who gave him a hard eye.