To the Death

She also had a fleeting suspicion that Carla either may have been foreign or had lived abroad for a long time. She had never forgotten that sentence “I give you one little piece, if you behave.” Future conditional. The mistake of a foreigner. Joe Segel really liked that.

Emily also recalled once asking what Carla had been doing on such a fine day, and she had mentioned that she just sat on her balcony and read some magazines. Apartment, doorman, balcony. Vital observations, not because they led to anything specific, but because they ruled out so much.

But the key point Mrs. Gallagher raised was the conversation she had in the hotel, possibly an hour before the killing. “That Matt Barker was harassing Carla,” she said. “I saw him, and I heard him. I told her to be careful, he was entirely the wrong type of person for her to go out with.”

“Careful, Emily,” said Joe. “He was successful, well-liked. And he did drive a Porsche.”

“He also had some very rough edges, entirely inappropriate for my friend Carla,” she replied. “I just hope this is all sorted out soon. And that she can come back to help me with Charlie and Kipper.”

“Who’s Kipper?” asked Joe.

“Oh, he’s my daughter’s spaniel. She and Arnold are going to Europe for three weeks, and I’m in charge of the dog.”

Joe smiled. He really liked Mrs. Gallagher, and he asked her once more, “You really have no idea where she lived?”

“Absolutely none. But it could not have been very far away. She was always on time, and I presumed she left her car in the parking lot at the hotel. But I never saw it. Not here. She always walked.”

So far as Joe was concerned, the mystery, if anything, deepened. And Mrs. Gallagher should have been a detective. He was grateful to her, and interested in how genuinely surprised she was that Carla had left without a word.

Noon, Wednesday 4 July National Security Agency Fort Meade, Maryland

Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe was on duty. His boss, the director, Admiral George Morris, had been away since the previous weekend, visiting his son in New York. He would not be back until tomorrow morning.

This left Jimmy at the helm. The agency had many more senior officials in residence, commanders, captains, admirals, colonels, and brigadier generals. But Ramshawe had the ear of the mighty, and everyone knew it. He punched far above his weight in his job as assistant to Admiral Morris, thanks in no small way to his known friendship with the Great One, Admiral Arnold Morgan.

Everyone kept Jimmy posted, willingly and without rancor. Admiral Morris trusted him implicitly. If you wanted to get something urgent done, in any department, have a chat with young Jimmy. Everyone knew that rule. Indeed, most everyone believed that one day Admiral — or at least Captain — Ramshawe would occupy the Big Chair. Admiral Morgan said his protégé was the most natural-born intelligence officer he had ever met.

The downside, of course, for one so respected, was you had to work on national holidays. Jimmy’s fiancée, Jane Peacock, the Aussie ambassador’s daughter, was particularly peeved because she had wanted to dazzle the local populace of Chesapeake Beach on her surfboard, Bondi beach goddess that she was. But Jimmy swore to God he’d be at her house for dinner by 7:30 P.M.

Meantime, he had spent the morning catching up on the foreign papers. He never got to the local ones until quite late, and even then concentrated principally on overseas news.

However, the Estuary Killer was crowding in on him, since it was mentioned on all the front pages and he had heard mention of it on television news. He picked up the Washington Post and could scarcely miss the second lead, accompanied as it was by a large photo-artist identity of Carla Martin and a photograph of Matt Barker.

“Hello,” he muttered to himself. “Here’s the bloke who died with his pecker out.” He recalled the cleaning lady mentioning that it was jutting out there, large as life.

But it was not the pecker that arrested Jimmy’s attention. It was the dagger, which he thought sounded extremely old-fashioned. You just don’t hear it much, that’s all. You hear about knife crime, and stabbings, but you don’t hear about daggers. Except in Macbeth, or Julius Caesar—“Is this a pecker I see before me?”