Chương 2
The chaplain cleared his throat again, louder.
Whitmore glanced at the coffin. “General Monroe arranged for the burial to proceed regardless of any family dispute.”
“Of course he did,” Caleb muttered, lowering his glass. “God forbid death inconvenience him.”
Diane touched Caleb’s sleeve. He pulled away, not harshly, but enough that her hand remained suspended for a moment before returning to her lap.
Evelyn folded the note along its original crease.
“What’s in B-17?” she asked.
Whitmore’s answer came after a small pause. “I don’t know.”
Richard gave a short laugh with no humor in it. “That is a lie.”
Whitmore looked at him then. “You should speak to counsel before accusing a federal official of lying in front of three witnesses.”
The agents did not change expression.
Richard’s beard moved as he clenched his teeth. He looked around at the guests, perhaps searching for the version of himself that had existed five minutes earlier—a respected defense executive burying his decorated father, surrounded by people who returned his calls.
No one volunteered to restore him.
The funeral resumed because funerals do. The honor guard lifted the coffin. The flag snapped above them. The musicians began again, slightly too fast at first, then settled into tempo.
Evelyn stood beside the aisle with the lighter enclosed in her gloved hand. Richard remained three places away, separated from her by Whitmore and one federal agent. Caleb drank the rest of his whiskey in a single swallow. Diane kept her gaze on the floor.
When the rifle salute came, three controlled volleys broke across the courtyard. Evelyn did not flinch at the sound. She flinched when the folded flag was presented to Richard.
Arthur had named his son next of kin for ceremonial purposes years before their final estrangement. Richard accepted the flag with the solemn face he used in photographs. For one second, his thumb pressed too hard into the blue field.
Evelyn remembered Arthur teaching her not to touch a folded flag with bare hands.
She hated the memory for arriving.
After the coffin was carried through the arch toward the waiting hearse, guests moved in small uncertain groups. Some came to Evelyn. A retired colonel she barely remembered squeezed her elbow and said, “Your grandfather was proud,” with the confidence of a man who had never been present for a private family meal.
A congressman offered condolences while looking past her toward Whitmore.
A former Army nurse whispered, “Kandahar,” and touched two fingers to her heart.
Most people avoided Richard.
He endured this for perhaps seven minutes. Then he crossed the wet courtyard toward Evelyn with Caleb and Diane trailing behind him.
“We need a room,” Richard said.
Whitmore answered before Evelyn could. “Colonel Monroe is leaving with me.”
“No, she isn’t.”
One of the agents shifted half a step. It was not a threat. It was geometry.
Richard stopped.
Evelyn tucked the lighter into the inner pocket of her uniform jacket. “Where is St. Matthew’s?”
“A veterans’ rehabilitation clinic in Arlington,” Whitmore said. “Your grandfather volunteered there on Thursdays.”
“He told us he was at physical therapy,” Diane said.
Everyone looked at her.
She adjusted one pearl earring. “That’s what he said.”
Richard’s voice softened. “Diane.”
It was the tone he used when he wanted obedience to appear affectionate.
She looked at him at last, and Evelyn saw nervous knowledge rather than grief.
“What did you know?” Evelyn asked.
Diane’s lips parted. Nothing came out.
Richard moved closer to his wife. “She knew Dad enjoyed collecting little secrets. That’s all.”
Caleb rubbed his empty glass with his thumb. “Could somebody explain why three federal agents came to a funeral for a retired general?”
“No,” Whitmore said.
Caleb gave him an incredulous look. “No?”
“Not here.”
Richard turned to Evelyn. “Your grandfather was confused at the end.”
“He beat me at chess four days before he died,” Whitmore said.
“That proves he could play chess.”
“It proves he knew which son he feared would take his lighter.”
Richard’s face hardened. “You have no idea what happens if she opens that cabinet.”
Whitmore’s eyes remained calm. “Then you do know what is inside.”
Rain clicked softly against the canopy.
Richard looked at Evelyn. The domineering posture returned by pieces: shoulders back, chin raised, one hand closing over the folded flag. “You think this is about you. It isn’t. There are eleven thousand employees whose mortgages do not care about your feelings.”
Evelyn’s breathing slowed.
There it was—the company made flesh whenever Richard needed to move blame out of himself. Employees, families, national security, suppliers, troops. He arranged them like sandbags between his decisions and the people harmed by them.
“I don’t know what this is about,” she said.
“Then don’t pretend you’re qualified to handle it.”
Whitmore looked toward the colonnade. “We’re leaving.”
Richard’s voice dropped. “Evie.”
He had not called her that in seventeen years.
She paused.
His expression changed, or tried to. Fear remained beneath it. “Give me one hour. Not because I’m your father. Because once you hand that paper to him, you cannot take it back.”
“The paper is already in my pocket.”
“You know what I mean.”
She did.
That was why she walked away.
St. Matthew’s Veterans Rehabilitation Clinic occupied a low brick building behind a church and a grocery store in Arlington. By the time Evelyn arrived in Whitmore’s sedan, the rain had thickened. Water ran along the curb in dark ribbons. The clinic’s front windows were unlit, and a handwritten sign taped inside the glass announced altered weekend hours.
One of the agents unlocked the side entrance.
“You have keys?” Evelyn asked.
“We have permission from the clinic director and the executor of your grandfather’s estate,” Whitmore said.
“Who is the executor?”
“His attorney. Not your father.”
May you like
That explained at least one layer of Richard’s panic.
Inside, the building smelled of disinfectant, old coffee, and rubber exercise mats. A television mounted in the waiting room played a muted college football game to empty chairs. Someone had left a half-finished jigsaw puzzle on a low table. Most of it showed blue sky.
