Call After Midnight (6 page)

The minister's voice receded to a faintly irritating drone. A cold drizzle stung Sarah's cheeks and clouded her glasses; fog moved in, closing off the world. Abby's sudden nudge brought her back to reality. The casket had been lowered. She saw faces, all watching her, all waiting. These were her friends, but in her pain she scarcely recognized them. Even Abby, dear Abby, was a stranger to her now.

Automatically Sarah bent down and took a handful of earth. It was damp and rich and it smelled of rain. She tossed it into the grave. The thud of the casket made her wince.

Faces passed by as if they were ghosts in the mist. Her friends were gentle. They spoke softly. Through it all she stood dry-eyed and numb. The smell of flowers and the mist against her face overpowered her senses, and she was aware of nothing else until she looked around and saw that the others had gone. Only she and Abby were standing beside the grave.

“It's starting to rain,” said Abby.

Sarah looked up and saw the clouds descending on them like a cold, silvery blanket. Abby draped her stout arm around Sarah's shoulders and nudged her toward the parking lot.

“A cup of tea, that's what we both need,” said Abby. It was her remedy for everything. She had survived a nasty divorce and the departure of her college-bound sons on nothing more potent than Earl Grey. “A cup of tea, and then let's talk.”

“A cup of tea does sound nice,” admitted Sarah.

Arm in arm, they slowly walked across the lawn. “I know it means nothing to you now,” said Abby, “but the pain will pass, Sarah. It really will. We women are strong that way. We have to be.”

“What if I'm not?”

“You are. Don't you doubt it.”

Sarah shook her head. “I question everything now. And everyone.”

“You don't doubt me, do you?”

Sarah looked at Abby's broad, damp face and smiled. “No. Not you.”

“Good. When you get to be my age, you'll see that it's all—” Suddenly Abby stopped in her tracks. Her breathing was loud and husky. Sarah followed the direction of her gaze.

A man was walking toward them through the mist.

Sarah took in the windblown dark hair and the gray overcoat, now sparkling with water droplets. She could tell he had been standing outside a long time, probably through the whole funeral. The cold had turned his face ruddy.

“Mrs. Fontaine?” he asked.

“Hello, Mr. O'Hara.”

“Look, I realize this is a bad moment, but I've been trying to get hold of you for two days. You haven't returned my calls.”

“No,” she admitted, “I haven't.”

“I need to talk to you. There've been some new developments. I think you should hear about them.”

“Sarah, who is this man?” broke in Abby.

Nick turned to the older woman. “Nick O'Hara. I'm with the State Department. If it would be all right, ma'am, I'd like a moment alone with Mrs. Fontaine.”

“Maybe she doesn't want to talk to you.”

He looked back at Sarah. “It's important.”

Something about the way he looked at her, the stubborn angle of his jaw, made Sarah consider his request. She hadn't planned to speak to him again. For the past two days, her answering machine had recorded his half dozen calls, all of which she'd ignored. Geoffrey was dead and buried; that was pain enough. Nick O'Hara would only make things worse by asking his unanswerable questions.

“Please, Mrs. Fontaine.”

At last she nodded. With a glance at Abby, she said, “I'll be all right.”

“Well, you can't stand around chatting out here. It'll be pouring in a minute!”

“I can drive her home,” said Nick. At Abby's dubious look, he smiled. “Really, I'm okay. I'll take care of her.”

Abby gave Sarah one last hug and kiss. “I'll call you tonight, sweetheart. Let's have breakfast in the morning.”
Then, with obvious reluctance, she turned and headed toward her car.

“A good friend, I take it,” he said, watching Abby's retreat.

“We've worked together for years.”

“At NIH?”

“Yes. The same lab.”

He glanced up at the sky, which was now dark with storm clouds. A chill had fallen over them. “Your friend's right. It'll be pouring in a minute. Come on. My car's this way.”

Gently he touched her sleeve. She moved ahead mechanically, allowing him to guide her into the front seat of his car. He slid in beside her and pulled his door shut. For a moment they sat in silence. The car was an old Volvo, practical, without frills, a model one chose purely for transportation. It fit him, somehow. A trace of warmth still clung to the interior, and Sarah's glasses clouded over. Pulling them off, she turned and looked at him and saw that his hair was wet.

“You must be cold,” he said. “Let's get you home.”

The engine roared to life. A blast of air erupted from the heater, gradually warming them as they drove along the winding road from the cemetery. The windshield wiper squeaked back and forth.

“It started out so beautiful this morning,” she said, watching the rain fall.

“Unpredictable. Just like everything else.”

He smoothly turned the car onto the highway bound for D.C. He was a calm driver, with steady hands. The kind who probably never took risks. Savoring the heater's warmth, Sarah settled back in her seat.

“Why didn't you return my calls?” he asked.

“It was rude of me. I'm sorry.”

“You didn't answer my question. Why didn't you call me back?”

“I guess I didn't want to hear any more speculation about Geoffrey. Or about his death.”

“Even if they're facts?”

“You weren't giving me facts, Mr. O'Hara. You were guessing.”

He stared ahead grimly at the road. “I'm not guessing anymore, Mrs. Fontaine. I've got the facts. All I need is a name.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your husband. You said that six months ago you met Geoffrey Fontaine at a coffee shop. He must have swept you clean off your feet. Four months later you were married. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know how to say this, but Geoffrey Fontaine— the real Geoffrey Fontaine—died forty-two years ago. As an infant.”

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. “I don't understand…”

He didn't look at her; he kept his eyes on the road as he talked. “The man you married took the name of a dead infant. It's easy enough to do. You hunt around for the name of a baby who died around the year you were born. Then you get a copy of the birth certificate. With that you apply for a Social Security number, a driver's license, a marriage license. You
become
that infant, grown up. A new identity. A new life. With all the records to prove it.”

“But—but how do you know all this?”

“Everything's on computer these days. From a few cross-checks, I found out that Geoffrey Fontaine never registered for the draft. He never attended school. He never
held a bank account—until a year ago, when his name suddenly appeared in a dozen different places.”

The breath went out of her. “Then who was he?” she whispered at last. “Who did I marry?”

“I don't know,” Nick answered.

“Why? Why would he do it? Why would he start a new life?”

“I can think of lots of reasons. My first thought was that he was wanted for some crime. His thumbprints were on record with the driver's license bureau, so I had them run through the FBI computer. He's not on any of their lists.”

“Then he wasn't a criminal.”

“There's no proof that he was. Another possibility is that he was in some kind of federal witness program, that he was given a new name for protection. It's hard for me to check on that. The data are locked up tight. It would, however, give us a motive for his murder.”

“You mean—the people he testified against—they found him.”

“That's right.”

“But he would have told me about something like that, he would have shared it with me….”

“That's what makes me think of one more possibility. Maybe you can confirm it.”

“Go on.”

“What if your husband's new name and new life were just part of his job? He might not have been running from anything. He might have been sent here.”

“You mean he was a spy,” she said softly.

He looked at her and nodded. His eyes were as gray as the storm clouds outside.

“I don't believe this,” she said. “None of it!”

“It's real. I assure you.”

“Then why are you telling
me
? How do you know I'm not an accomplice or something?”

“I think you're clean, Mrs. Fontaine. I've seen your file—”

“Oh. I have a file, too?” she shot back.

“You got security clearance some years ago, remember? For the research you were working on. Naturally a file was generated.”

“Naturally.”

“But it's not just your file that makes me think you're clean. It's my own gut feeling. Now convince me I'm right.”

“How? Should I hook myself up to a polygraph?”

“Start off by telling me about you and Geoffrey. Were you in love?”

“Of course we were!”

“So it was a real marriage? You had…relations?”

She flushed. “Yes. Like any normal couple. Do you want to know how often? When?”

“I'm not playing games. I'm sticking my neck out for you. If you don't like my approach, perhaps you'd prefer the way the Company handles it.”

“Then you haven't told the CIA?”

“No.” His chin came up in an unintended gesture of stubbornness. “I don't care much for the way they do things. I may get slapped down for this, but then again, I may not.”

“So why are you putting yourself on the line?”

He shrugged. “Curiosity. Maybe a chance to see what I can do on my own.”

“Ambition?”

“That's part of it, I guess. Plus…” He glanced at her, and their eyes met. Suddenly he fell silent.

“Plus what?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

The rain was coming down in sheets and streamed across the windshield. Nick left the freeway and edged into city-bound traffic. Driving through D.C. rush hour usually made Sarah nervous; today, though, she took it calmly. Something about the way Nick O'Hara drove made her feel safe. In fact, everything about him spoke of safety—the steadiness of his hands on the wheel, the warmth of his car, the low timbre of his voice. Just sitting beside him, she felt secure. She could imagine how safe a woman might feel in his arms.

“Anyway,” he continued, “you can see we've got a lot of unanswered questions. You might have some of the answers, whether you know it or not.”

“I don't have any answers.”

“Let's start off with what you do know.”

She shook her head, bewildered. “I was married to him and I can't even tell you his real name!”

“Everyone, Sarah, even the best spy, slips up. He must've let his guard down for a moment. Maybe he talked in his sleep. Maybe he said things you can't explain.
Think
.”

She bit her lip, suddenly thinking not about Geoffrey, but about Nick. He'd called her by her first name. Sarah. “Even if there were things,” she said, “little things—I might not have considered them significant.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, he might have—he might have called me Evie once or twice. But he always apologized right away. He said she was an old girlfriend.”

“What about family? Friends? Didn't he talk about them?”

“He said he was born in Vermont, then raised in London. His parents were theater people. They're dead. He
never talked about any other relatives. He always seemed so…self-sufficient. He didn't have any close friends, not even from work. At least, none he introduced me to.”

“Oh, yes. His work. I've been checking on that. It seems he
was
listed on the Bank of London payroll. He had a desk in some back office. But no one remembers quite what he did.”

“Then even that part wasn't real.”

“So it seems.”

Sarah sank deeper into the seat. Each thing this man told her left another slash in the fabric of her life. Her marriage was dissolving away to nothing. It had been all shadow and no substance. Reality was here and now, the rain hitting the car, the windshield wipers beating back and forth. Most of all, reality was the man sitting silently beside her. He was not an illusion. She scarcely knew him, and yet he'd become the only reality she could cling to.

She wondered about Nick O'Hara. She didn't think he was married. Despite his aloofness she found him attractive enough; any woman would have. But there was more than just the physical attraction. She sensed his need. Something told her he was lonely, troubled. Vague shadows of unhappiness surrounded his eyes, creating a feeling of restlessness; it was the look of a man without a home. He probably had none. The foreign service was a career for nomads, not for people who craved a house in the suburbs. Nick O'Hara was definitely not the suburban type.

Shivering, she longed desperately to be back in her apartment, drinking that cup of tea with Abby.
It won't be long,
she thought as the streets became more and more familiar. Connecticut Avenue glistened in the rain. The downpour had already stripped the cherry trees of half their blossoms; the first rush of spring had been short-lived.

They pulled up in front of her apartment, and Nick dashed around the car to open her door. It was a funny little gesture, the sort of thing Geoffrey used to do, gallant and sweetly impractical. By the time they stamped into the lobby they were both soaked. The rain had plastered his hair in dark curls against his forehead.

“I suppose you have more questions.” She sighed as they headed toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

“If you mean do I want to come up, the answer is yes.”