And the only person I could think of was Sarah.
I reached for my cell, started dialing our home number, glanced at the dashboard clock and realized Sarah would be at work by now. So I started punching the numbers for the main switchboard, since I had no idea what Sarah’s extension was in the Home! section. But when I got to the second-to-last digit, I stopped, and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.
Maybe later.
There was no one home when I got there midmorning. Paul was at school, Angie at college. It looked as though everyone had fled in a hurry, dirty dishes still on the kitchen counter, the cream not put away. I opened the fridge, poured myself a large glass of orange juice, downed it, and trudged upstairs.
I dumped my travel bag on the bed, walked into the bathroom, turned on the radio that sat next to the sink.
I looked in the mirror. I hadn’t yet shaved, my eyes were bleary, my hair a tousled mess. I reached into the shower, turned on the taps, started unbuttoning my shirt.
It was the top of the hour and the news came on. The morning rush-hour traffic had thinned; it would be overcast with the odd sunny break. And then:
“Police have made an arrest in the grisly murder of an Oakwood newspaper columnist who was found dead, his throat slit, in the basement of a dominatrix earlier this week. Charged is Miranda Chicoine, who ran a sex business from her suburban home in Oakwood. Police arrested Chicoine outside of the village of Kelton, at the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Claire and Don Bennet, early this morning. They had been led to her location by Zack Walker, a reporter for the Metropolitan, who had been trying to track down the woman, hoping to talk her into turning herself in, according to police. In Washington—”
I turned off the radio.
I was undoing my pants when the phone rang. I walked back to the bedroom, picked it up.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, I’ll be damned, you’re there.” It was Dick Colby, the paper’s odiferous crime reporter. “You’re quite the man.”
“What can I do for you, Dick?”
“This story about you and the hooker just broke, police issued a statement, it’s already on the radio—”
“I know.”
“And you didn’t call us first? Fuck, Zack, what’s with you?”
“I just got back, Dick. It’s been kind of a long night.” I glanced into the bathroom, saw steam escaping from around the shower curtain.
“Okay, look, the radio, other papers, all they can get is the basics. We need the good shit, the color, from you. So how did you track her down, this Chicoine chick? That her real name? Because she was going by Snelling, right? Let me check these spellings with you.”
“Dick, I got nothing to say. I’m gonna have a shower. The water’s running.”
“Zack, hello? This is your paper calling. I know you probably think you should write this one up yourself, but you ask me, you’re too close, you’ve got a conflict, just like with those other big pieces you did, but fuck, that was okay with them then, but this time, I don’t think so. So you’re going to have to tell me what you’ve got, I’ll write it up, but you’ll look good just the same.”
I thought I caught a whiff of him over the phone.
“No comment, Dick,” I said. “I’m on suspension.” I hung up.
I was almost back to the bathroom when the phone rang again. I picked up. “Dick, I mean it, I have nothing to say.”
“Zack.” It was Sarah.
“Oh,” I said. “I just finished hanging up on Cheese Dick. I thought it was him.”
“It’s all over the newsroom, the thing about you and Trixie,” Sarah said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Tired.”
“What happened?”
“I found Trixie. Police were following me. They raided the place in the night, took her away.”
“She did it? She killed that man? The reporter?”
“No,” I said, thinking, not that man. “The cops’ll probably figure that out eventually.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Trixie said she was going to tell them that I went up there to tell her to turn herself in, and that’s the spin I just heard on the radio. I guess we’ll see.”
“Do you want me to come home?”
I shook my head, then realized that Sarah couldn’t see me. “It’s okay. I’m going to shower, maybe go to bed. How’s everything here? Kids okay?”
“They’re fine. Worried about you.”
“And you? How are you doing?” What I really was asking was how we were doing.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m…I can’t stand it here. Working with Frieda. Every day, it’s like we’re planning a church supper instead of a newspaper. I can’t swear here. It’s driving me fucking crazy.”
I let out a small laugh. I couldn’t recall when I’d last done that.
“Is it over, Zack?” Sarah asked.