Color of Blood(43)

***

At one point the car swerved sharply and hit a patch of gravel that peppered the side and undercarriage of the rental like a blast of buckshot. Dennis cursed as he righted the car and took his eyes off the cell phone.

He had been trying to call out for a while, but the cell service was poor. He was using his personal cell phone, which was not as strong as the Agency-issue encrypted phone, so he tossed it onto the passenger seat, and it bounced to a rest.

Driving through Nashua, he dialed again, and it connected.

“Hello,” the woman’s voice said.

“Judy, it’s Dennis. From the States.”

“Hello, Yank,” she said. “While it’s still early, it’s a lot more civilized time of day to call.”

“Oops. What time is it there?”

“Half-past six in the morning.”

“Ugh. I’m sorry it’s so early, but I just had to call you. I found out what really happened to our little friend at the consulate.”

“Good heavens, you really are tenacious, Dennis,” she said. “Tell me what happened to him.”

“He faked his own death, or someone did, but he’s alive.”

“No! That’s impossible,” she said. “Dennis, you must be mistaken.”

“No. A couple of things were bugging me from the beginning, especially the pressure from his family for more information on his status. I noticed his parents were almost insane about getting information on their only child, which is understandable. They were so desperate they tried to get their powerful congressman involved.”

“So?”

“Well, a little over a month ago, the family stopped calling and writing to the Agency. They just stopped, just like that. Zilch.”

“So?” Judy said. “They probably stopped because they knew they couldn’t get him back alive.”

“No, they stopped contacting the Agency even though they hadn’t been told that he was dead.”

“That’s odd,” she said slowly. “No one told them about the shark attack?”

“No, the family had only been told he had disappeared in a foreign country. That’s all. That would be standard at the Agency until they had a body or more definitive proof.”

“I’m not following you, Dennis.”

“Without being told by the Agency that their son is even dead, the family suddenly stops calling. I think they stopped calling because they know he’s still alive.”

“But Dennis, how would they know that?”

“Because he contacted them.”

“He did?”

“I had an old friend of mine at the Bureau pull phone records of the Garder family in New Hampshire, and sure as hell, they received a long-distance phone call from a pay phone in Belgium four weeks ago. The call lasted twelve minutes. One day later they received another long-distance call from a pay phone outside Paris. That one lasted seven minutes.”

“It was their son!” Judy said. “Good lord, Dennis, you are amazing. I’ll bet they’ll celebrate this latest Cunningham triumph in true fashion. You’ll get a medal or something like that.”

“Well, that’s not going to be so easy.”

“Oh, come now, Dennis, how could they be anything but ecstatic about this outcome?”

“Judy, I just have one more favor to ask. It’s a small one, really.”

“Uh-oh,” she said carefully. “What would that be?”

Up till this point she had enjoyed Dennis’s interest in sharing details of the investigation. It felt good knowing this veteran CIA investigator cared enough to keep in contact with her, and of course she felt like he enjoyed talking to her. But she had a nagging fear she was being manipulated.

“You know that little spot of oil that your group identified in the back of Garder’s car? The spot that I thought was latent blood?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Is there any chance you could do one final test on the sample, if you folks still have it? I need to know what kind of transmission fluid it was.”

“Dennis, that case is closed.”

“OK,” he said. “Just thought I’d ask.”

Judy was silent and felt an awkwardness creep into the phone call.

“Well, it was great catching up with you,” Dennis said quickly. “Just thought you’d be interested in our young consulate employee. Is everything going OK with you?”

Judy thought she could hear the background sounds from an automobile in transit and wondered where he was calling from.

“Judy,” he repeated, “how are you doing?”

She said nothing and unconsciously bit the inside of her lip, sitting up in her bed.

“Judy?” Dennis asked again. “Did I lose you?”

“I’ll do it,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“I said I’d do it,” she said quickly. “I’ll get the test done.”

“Listen, it was stupid,” he said quickly. “Really. Just forget it.”

“I said I’d do it,” she said, this time with a level of intensity that surprised her; it was spoken with equal parts anger and supplication. “I’m just hoping, Dennis, that you didn’t call me for that reason alone. It makes me feel used.”