“Never mind. I needed a clear head and a mobile body and it’s entirely my responsibility anyway.” She paused. “What I told Olivia was true, you know. You were very kind to me last night.” She added lightly, “So it’s only fair I do payback. After all, I made you a promise. I know you don’t really care about all that General Kotcheff business, but it’s something I can do now. So you’ll just have to put up with it while I rattle it off and get it over with. Serves you right for using it as a bargaining chip. Ready?”
“I’m always ready for you, Kendra,” he said quietly.
“I’ll go right down the line,” she said brusquely. “How did I know the general was spending time out of uniform at Kolula Pushta Road? Answer, he has fresh calluses on the lower knuckles of his thumb and the middle two fingers of his right hand. Bowler’s calluses. There’s no bowling alley on the base, but there is one on Kolula Pushta Road. You and I passed it a few times while we were there. I was curious and read that it was the only one in the entire country. And I could see from his tan lines that he often wears a shirt other than his military uniform. I doubt he wears it on base, so it wasn’t a stretch to figure he wears it on his in-town bowling jaunts.”
“Very good. What about the fact that he had a boat on Lake Huron?”
“I’m getting to it. He has fishing lures hanging from the rearview mirror on his jeep. Very elaborate, very well made. I assume he made them himself. In any case, it shows an interest in fishing. He wears a diver’s watch and on his right wrist he has another tan line. It’s for the flexible wrist bracelet that most divers use to hold a key to their boats so that someone can’t come along and easily take it. I can recognize a Detroit accent from a mile away, and Lake Huron offers the best fishing and diving in the area. It’s not the only one, but it’s the biggest and the best lake for that. The bracelet tan line was very fresh so I knew he must have been back there recently. He wears a wedding ring so it was likely that he’d been there with his family.” She took a breath and then realized she had forgotten something. “By the way, I could pick up a faint Alabama twang in his speech, so that’s how I knew he probably spent his younger years there.”
“No, we shouldn’t forget that twang I never even noticed,” he said solemnly. “Are we finished?”
“Almost. The diabetes. He has tiny red spots on his retina. It could indicate diabetic retinopathy. I was angry with him, but I still thought he should know about it.”
“By all means.” He shook his head. “And you followed that act of concern and thoughtfulness by blowing his mind when you threw the bright red underwear at him.”
“Well, I never said I was perfect. Can we forget about all this now?”
“No, I never forget anything about who you are, Kendra.” He paused. “Particularly when you try to distract me by dazzling all those deductions in front of me.”
She stiffened. “You said you wanted to know.”
“Yes, it amuses me. But not if it means you avoid telling me what I want to know. Why were you so quiet?”
“Never satisfied.”
“Not true. On many levels.”
She was silent and then burst out, “Jessie.” She moistened her lips. “You sent Jessie to dig deep and find everything she could about Dietrich. I wish you would have talked to me first.”
“You disapprove?” he asked. “What’s the problem? I thought it was going to be an all-out effort to nail Dietrich. Metcalf is going at it full force and we both know what an excellent investigator Jessie is when she gets the bit in her teeth. She’ll be a major asset.”
“I know she will. And she’s definitely got the bit in her teeth. She’s curious about Dietrich and she’ll go the extra step to get him.” She paused. “I’m just afraid she’ll go too far. Investigating him is one thing. What if she finds him and goes after him?”
“She’s a professional, Kendra. She wouldn’t do anything to scare him off.”
“I know that.” She was silent again and then said haltingly, “I don’t want her to run the risk, dammit. She’s