Discovery Channel special about snipers and having fun picking out the errors, when her iPhone rings. She checks the incoming call and sees it’s Parker Hoyt, for the third time in the last ten minutes. The previous two times she’s hung up on him after the call deteriorated into insults and name-calling, and she’s deciding to give him a third try.
“Yes?”
She hears his heavy breathing. “Don’t you ever hang up on me, ever again.”
“What, you expect me to keep a line open with you, twenty-four/seven?” Marsha asks. “I always hang up on you when our conversation is complete.”
“You know what the hell I mean.”
“Perhaps, but I’ll say it for the third time, Mr. Hoyt. Just because you’re paying me doesn’t mean you have a blank check to scream at me or insult me. You want to have a serious, employer-to-employee conversation, I’m open to that. Otherwise, the minute the insults fly, I’m off to do something more productive. Like watching television or trimming my toenails.”
More heavy breathing. “Did you have to kill him?”
Marsha says, “Of course I did. I was there in the apartment, pretending to be a Comcast employee, with very illegal and technical surveillance equipment on my body. What, you think I should have given up? Let myself get arrested? That would have been a fun police interrogation later, don’t you think?”
“Answer the damn question! Did you have to kill him?”
She says, “Sorry to shatter any illusions you might have, Mr. Hoyt, but when I’m in a hand-to-hand combat situation, my goal isn’t to leave them with a lump on the skull. He’s dead, I’m alive, and that’s the way I wanted it.”
“And what the hell were you doing there in the first place?” On the television, the program depicts a sniper who is supposedly in camouflage, and Marsha thinks a Cub Scout wearing corrective lenses could spot him from fifty meters away. “I was trying to gather something missing from this little op, which is actionable intelligence. You’ve given me scraps and pieces, always late, and I’ve done the best I could with those scraps. Well, I was tired of doing the best I could. I wanted to try excellence for a change, by placing surveillance equipment in her apartment, and her vehicle, if I got lucky.”
“You should have told me beforehand.”
“I tried, but for some reason, Mr. Hoyt, you weren’t answering your phone. And you told me earlier that if need be, I should act on my own. So I did. So unless you have anything else to tell me, give it a rest.”
More breathing. He says, “By this time tomorrow, we’re going to leak out that she’s missing. Get the news media and the public involved.”
“Ah,” she says. “Try to flush her out of whatever hole she might be hiding in.”
“That’s right.”
“And my job?”
“Same as before … but to be clear … we’re looking for a final solution.”
“How German-like of you. Okay.”
“Are we done?”
“For now.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asks.
She wonders for a moment, and then decides to make it all clear. “I just want you to make sure that you remember I’m a professional. And you don’t last in this business by being an amateur. And a professional has something in hand to guarantee one’s safety. So if there’s a funeral next week for the First Lady, there better not be an FBI contingent breaking into my apartment with an arrest warrant the day after. Clear?”
A long, long delay, and she’s sure he’s trying to keep control of his temper. “You’re threatening me.”
“No, I’m setting expectations. Pay me, keep your end quiet, and my end will be quiet as well.”
Then he loses it, calls her a number of names, and then hangs up.
Marsha shrugs, sees that once more, she’s successfully recorded this call from the chief of staff, and happily goes back to watching the documentary on snipers, which makes her smile in amusement for the next forty minutes.
CHAPTER 49
ON THIS DAY, the worst of days, I’m like an actress in some play, not knowing my lines or responsibilities, just being gently pushed along by those in the know. The day has been a jumble of images and sights, and now, I’m in the final act of this performance, a cloudy and cold day in a Jewish cemetery near Capitol Heights, Maryland, holding Amelia’s frigid hand in my own as the rabbi speaks over Ben’s open grave.
It’s been just a day since I last saw my husband, dead in my bedroom, but