Silenced by the Yams - By Karen Cantwell Page 0,20
At least not anything that was appropriate for public audiences. Howard had kept his job with the FBI secret from me for nearly twenty years, so why should I be surprised that I wasn’t informed when he decided to leave? I decided to change the subject. I asked them, as nonchalantly as I could, whether one of the shooting victims was the newscaster, Guy Mertz.
Agent Smith shook her head. “We can’t discuss that with you. We just need to know what you saw, if anything.”
“Nothing,” Colt said. “We didn’t see a thing.”
Even though I was shocked to hear him blurt out that lie, I tried to act cool, which wasn’t easy when the sidewalk under our feet could double as a diner grill.
Smith narrowed her eyes. “You’re awfully close to have seen nothing, Mr. Baron.”
“We were clear back there,” he pointed toward the Washington Memorial, “when we heard gunfire and ran closer, but we were too far away at the time of the incident for a visual.”
She wasn’t buying it. “You ran toward the gunfire?”
“I’m that kind of guy.”
She eyed me with equal suspicion. “Are you just that kind of woman, Mrs. Marr? Do you run toward gunfire?”
“Hey, I was just following him.”
“And those sunglasses,” she pointed to the pieces in my hand. “Did they break during the mad dash?”
Boy, they trained those agents well. She wasn’t missing a trick. Luckily for me, I have kids and have learned the fine art of fibbing on a dime. “Rogue Frisbee,” I said, adding a giggle for good measure. “On the mall—last time I’ll walk through the middle of an ultimate Frisbee match.” I brought a flat hand up to my nose to duplicate the fake event. “Hit me right between the eyes.”
Smith and Price traded looks that basically said, “these jerks are full of it,” but they backed down anyway. Probably because they knew where to find me. Which didn’t give me a warm and fuzzy.
“Fine,” Smith said. “You can go.”
“Thanks,” I sighed with relief.
Colt and I turned quickly on our heels to scoot our booties from the crime scene.
“Marr!” I heard Agent Smith shout before we’d gotten too far.
I stopped and turned.
“Remember,” she said. “We know where to find you.”
Yup. Just like I said.
*****
The vast expanse from the Washington Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial was crawling with federal agents and Park Police so I didn’t dare chide Colt for holding back his information. I have my paranoid tendencies, and as far as I knew, not only did the government possess the technology to pick up my conversation at a whisper, they could probably grab my thoughts from mid-air too.
“Where are you parked?” I asked him.
“I wouldn’t bring The Judge down here and risk her getting hurt. I took the Metro train.”
‘The Judge’ was Colt’s car. It was a red, lovingly restored GTO and evidently, everyone referred to these cars as The Judge. Me, I don’t name my cars. I’m too hard on them. If I named them, I’d feel guilty every time I hit a pot hole or went a year without an oil change.
Since I was parked near the Tidal Basin at the Jefferson Memorial, Colt agreed to head in that direction and hitch a ride home with me. He didn’t know I had one more stop on my agenda.
We climbed into my van. I turned the ignition and flipped the AC to ultra-freeze.
“Which way to the DC city jail?” I asked after we’d both buckled in.
Colt threw his hands in the air. “You have to be kidding me! Really? You haven’t had enough connection to murder and mayhem for one day? Now you want to go talk up a wiseguy?”
“Oh, give it a break. He’s not a wiseguy anymore. He’s a chef. Sometimes good people get caught up in bad situations and they deserve the chance to make things right and move forward.”
“Spending thirty plus years in the Mafia is hardly getting caught up in a bad situation, Barb.”
I gasped. “You did it again!”
Colt’s expression was blank. “What?”
“You called me Barb!”
He spoke slowly, as if I was missing a few marbles. “It’s your name.”
“Not to you it isn’t.” I’d put the van into drive but kept my foot on the brake. “Curly. You call me Curly. You’ve never called me Barb.”
“Never?”
“Never ever. Not until yesterday when you brought Meeeee-gan by.”
His lips curled into a devious smile. “I think you’re jealous.”
“I think you’re stupid.”
“Now you’re just being childish.”
“Childish is holding back information from the FBI. I’m pretty sure you