“A swimmer? Does he still compete?”
“No, no. But he swims every day. He got into it as a child to help his asthma. The doctors thought it would increase his lung capacity and allow him to control his breathing better. And it worked, the more he swam the less medication he needed. His asthma had all but cleared up by the time he was an adult. Of course, the war exacerbated the condition and he was stricken again. The shaving, he’s done that as long as I’ve known him. A bit strange, but you get used to it.”
He sat back in his seat and watched her for a moment. She met his gaze frankly. She certainly believed that was the truth. Might as well see if he could push her buttons. Just in case. Something was off here, and he didn’t know what it was. Answers for everything, easy plausible answers, always made him nervous.
“You’re awfully put together for a woman whose very public husband might have been murdered.”
Her voice hardened. “Was he?”
Fletcher watched her for a moment before he answered. “Very possibly. That’s what I’m trying to find out. So anything you can tell me will help.”
Her hand went to her throat, and she sighed. The facade dropped and she finally looked like a grieving widow.
“Detective, I suppose you’re right to say that, because you can’t know what it’s like to be married to someone like my husband. Someone who served in the military, on the front lines. Someone who has a disease that can take him at a moment’s notice, who marched through deserts dodging bullets, who works in a building that has some of the highest level security in the country. Death is on our minds all the time. Life is not something that I take for granted. I’ve always known I wouldn’t grow old with Peter. He was on borrowed time. He knew it, I knew it. The asthma had ruined his lungs, he got sick at the drop of a hat, and his illnesses were getting antibiotic resistant. He’d been battling pneumonia this winter and spring, and it was barely cleared up. He was destined to die young. We’ve both been prepared for this inevitability. It sucks, and I’m devastated, but I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop for years. I’m just sorry I wasn’t here in D.C. yesterday. I didn’t get to kiss my husband goodbye on his final day. That will haunt me forever.”
“So you had a good marriage?”
“Yes, we did,” she whispered, and he felt the full brunt of her grief.
“Your son died in Iraq, isn’t that right?”
She stilled. “Yes.”
“That changed the congressman.”
Shadows passed across her face. “Many things about our son’s death changed us, Detective, the least of which was losing him to a brutal, pointless war. Peter was never the same.”
“And you?”
“I was his mother. Part of me died with him.”
Of course it did. The answer was exactly what he’d expect.
They sipped their coffee. Fletcher needed something to take back, and he wasn’t getting anything.
“Do you have any idea where the congressman’s briefcase might be?”
She looked confused. “I assume it’s at his office.”
“No one can seem to find it. Do you mind checking if he could have left it at home?”
She stood, setting her delicate coffee cup on the glass side table. “That would be very out of character for him, but yes, we can look. I haven’t been in his office since I arrived home. Please, follow me.”
The congressman’s office was on the other side of the house, opposite the living room they’d been sitting in. Fletcher got a much better sense of the man from his private space than he had from his congressional office. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, jam-packed with titles—everything from 1970s green-and-white encyclopedias to ancient texts to modern espionage thrillers. A small Zen garden with a tinkling waterfall stood sedately in a corner, and the large dark wood desk was relatively straight, topped with just a few loose odds and ends, paper, pens, glasses, like he’d been forced to rush out and leave them behind.
She hesitated in the doorway, but just for a moment. He heard her sigh deeply, then she entered the room, went straight to the desk.
“Goodness, here it is.” Gretchen reached under the desk and pulled out a leather attaché case. She immediately opened it. She pulled out an EpiPen case, and an inhaler. Without looking at Fletcher, she asked, “If he had these with him, would it have worked? Would it have arrested the attack?”
“I don’t know. He had an inhaler with him, though. Glenn Temple told me he helped him with it.”
“Well, that’s odd.”
“What?”
“This is his primary inhaler. He does have a spare, but his security detail carries it with them, along with another EpiPen. I can’t believe he left home without it. Where were his detail when he had the attack?”