The Hollow Ones(19)

“You from New Jersey, huh?”

“Correct. They, um…” She didn’t want to get into her situation with him. “You still have an office in B-Q.”

Solomon nodded, deeply furrowed lines in his forehead articulating every facial expression. “I don’t go in much.”

“Apparently not.” She tried a smile, but it felt forced. “I don’t understand something. Mandatory retirement age at the FBI is fifty-seven years old, correct?”

He nodded. “I guess officially, I’m retired,” he said.

“So why do you still have an office?”

“Well, in case I need it.”

Odessa nodded, though this made no sense to her. “I’m actually not clear on this. Did they…forget about your office?”

“They forgot about me.” Solomon smiled. His teeth were large and looked loose. “Are you taking over my office?”

“Me, no. Just clearing it out.” She pointed with both hands to the carton on the chair behind her. “I brought your things from your desk. There wasn’t much.”

He never looked at the carton, curious about her. “How is it you drew this errand of mercy?”

She smiled at first, at the expression, then realized she had to come clean. “I’m on desk duty temporarily.”

Solomon nodded like he expected this. “Disability or disciplinary?”

“‘Administrative inquiry,’” she said, a phrase that kept running through her head. “It was a shoot.”

“A bad shoot?”

“That’s…really difficult to answer right now.”

“I see,” said Solomon as he glanced at the television high in the corner. He must have seen an earlier news report about the Montclair shooting. She watched his face as he put it together. His eyes returned to her with great interest and almost a revelatory expression. She wouldn’t understand what this meant until much later.

“The governor’s aide shooting,” he said. “Man turned on his family. Killed them all except one.”

Odessa looked down and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“The agent riding with you attacked the last surviving child and you shot him.”

She closed her eyes and nodded again. “Agent Solomon, I really don’t—”

He cut in. “You don’t want to talk about it.”

“No, sir. I don’t.”

“Understood. I have just a few specific questions.”

She looked at him with confusion, thinking he was going to let this go.

“First, about the other agent,” Solomon continued. “He’s a Bureau agent. I assume there were no indications of psychosis prior to this…?”

Odessa shook her head. “No.”

“The killer died first.”

“I shot him.”

“But the agent…was he already acting out of sorts?”

She really did not want to get into this. “You could say that, yes. I don’t want to—”

“These are difficult questions, but important. The agent, when you shot him. I’m talking about the moment of death. Was there anything…anything remarkable about it? Out of the ordinary?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer. She was reluctant to volunteer anything; in fact, she had been told by the lawyer not to discuss the case with anyone. But this question…so specific…

“I saw a kind of ripple, like fumes, coming off him.”

“Any odor? Oily?”

Again, how did he know? “Yes, like burnt solder.” She regretted the words as soon as she uttered them. “It was a traumatic moment, I’m not sure of anything…”

Solomon wasn’t judging. He was thinking. “Did you find a makeshift altar anywhere in the house?”

What kind of question was that? “There was no…”

“Altar. A shrine. Maybe in the garage or an outbuilding. An iron pot or an urn—”

She cut him off. “I didn’t participate in the investigation because I was part of what they were investigating,” she said. “Because of the bad shoot. And it wasn’t his house anymore, or at least he wasn’t living there.”

“A cauldron—black—cast iron sometimes,” he continued. “Might look like a big vase or a trash can if you don’t know what you’re looking for. And in it you might find hair, human hair, and bones…”

“Bones?” said Odessa.

“And blood, yes…Hard to miss that,” said the old man.

“Agent Solomon—” This was too weird. “I shouldn’t even be talking about this. I’m here about you.”

“Me? Don’t worry about me. I can’t taste and I can’t smell, and I got a fungus growing in my brain, so who knows what’s next. I’ll take that drink now.”

He was motioning to a mauve-colored pitcher on a wheeled tray. Odessa splashed some lukewarm water into a plastic cup for him. He sipped at it with a hand that trembled with age.

“You’re gonna need assistance with this investigation,” he told her.

“I have a Bureau-appointed lawyer,” she assured him.

“Not with your defense. With this investigation.”