New Tricks - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,46

normal world,’ ” Laurie points out.

“Still, it does make Sykes a person of interest,” Kevin says.

“Certainly interesting to me,” I say. “Let’s give him a call.”

I place a call to Sykes’s office and am told he is in a meeting. I leave word that it is urgent, and he calls me back in half an hour.

“Mr. Sykes, I’ve been doing some investigating, and I’ve got a few more questions for you. If we could meet sometime tomorrow, then—”

He interrupts. “I’m afraid I’m very busy, Mr. Carpenter. I can’t keep taking the time to—”

I return the interruption. “I understand, but I’ll make it as convenient for you as possible. I can come to your office, or if you’d rather we can meet at the Hamilton Hotel.”

There is silence on the other end for at least twenty seconds while the message is digested. “Mr. Sykes?”

“I see you’re not above dragging people through the mud.”

“Actually, I’m not dragging anyone through the mud. I’m trying to clear the mud away so I can see through to the bottom.”

He agrees to see me, as I knew he would, but I’ve got a feeling we’re never really going to be buddies again.

Once I get off the phone, I ask Kevin to go down to the jail and ask Steven if he is aware of any particular rival that Walter Timmerman had on the dog show circuit. It still seems like a ridiculous long shot, but I believe in covering every base.

Then I call Cindy Spodek at her FBI office in Boston. Once again I’m told that she’s in a meeting, but when I say it’s important, the meeting mysteriously ends and she gets on the phone.

“What’s up, Andy?”

“You weren’t in a meeting, were you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“They said you were in a meeting, but then you got on the phone. I think it was a fake meeting.”

“It’s a fake meeting that’s about to start again, if you don’t get to the point,” she says.

“I want to talk to the agent heading up the task force on Walter Timmerman.”

“You mean the task force you don’t even know about because I never told you?”

“That’s the very one.”

“Forget it, Andy.”

“I know who killed the Timmermans, and I thought I should share it with the government, my government, as a way to demonstrate my patriotism.”

“I’m getting all misty.”

“I would think that a task force investigating Walter Timmerman might want to find out who killed him. That might even be one of their primary tasks.” I’m overstating things a bit here, but I’m comfortable with the assumption that if Childs admitted killing Diana Timmerman, then he must have killed Walter as well.

“Was it your client?”

“No.”

“Is your client still in jail?” she asks.

“That’s another story,” I say. “Can you set up a meeting?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says.

“Your country will be forever grateful to you.”

I ASSIGN SAM WILLIS THE JOB of giving Thomas Sykes a cyber strip search.

Maybe it will turn out that all Sykes was doing was getting into his partner’s wife’s pants, but I want to know what else he was getting into before the Timmermans died.

Laurie has cooked dinner tonight, the first time she’s done so since she was shot. She’s doing remarkably well; though her walk is unsteady, her facial features and speech are both almost back to normal. She still tires easily, which drives her crazy. I know that, because she tells me so.

I have my own, admittedly unscientific, way of measuring how Laurie is progressing. Basically, my theory is that the more I think about sex, the healthier she must be.

For a few weeks after the shooting, sex was the farthest thing from my mind. All I cared about, all I obsessed over, was Laurie surviving and then someday regaining her health and strength.

Then, as it became clear she was out of the woods and on the way to a full recovery, the idea of sex as an eventual possibility appeared on the horizon. But it was certainly nothing imminent, and I just as certainly didn’t consider doing anything about it.

But now I detect some faint rumblings out there. It’s still not anything I would act on; my fears of rejection and humiliation would simultaneously rule that out. But I am definitely at the point where if Laurie suggested it, it would not provoke a raging argument. It might even be good for her psychologically, and I’m certainly a guy who would do anything to help.

After dinner Laurie makes coffee in two devices