Bombshell

“And why, I wonder? I remember thinking—before I got so drunk I couldn’t see straight—that Professor Salazar didn’t seem all that involved. I mean, as the host, he made the rounds, gave students and faculty drinks and munchies, but he seemed sort of set apart from his own party. I remember thinking it must be driving Gabrielle DuBois mad. The drunker she got, the more she stuck next to him, trying to get him to dance, but—”

“But what?” Dix asked.

“I just remembered. Professor Salazar was watching me, and I wondered why. Here I was, trying to fend off Dr. Hayman, and I remember seeing Professor Salazar standing across the room, his very expensive cashmered back leaning against the fireplace mantel, a drink in his hand, looking my way.”

Saturday evening

Griffin hunkered down in Delsey’s room, alternately studying her face while she dozed, reading a biography online about Stanislaus, and keeping half an eye on the national news on TV. When he heard Savich’s voice, he jerked around, then realized his new boss was on TV, not in the room with him. Savich was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, thick swirling snow piling white on his black hair, talking about the murder of a young man. He spoke briefly, went into no detail. The clip looked to have been recorded that morning.

Griffin’s cell phone buzzed. He looked down at a message from Ruth.

Body found at Lincoln Memorial this a.m.—grandson of Palmer Cronin, ex-chairman of Fed, body staged for max effect—see YouTube.

Griffin stared at the message, then back to the TV, where a bundled-up Washington correspondent stood, mike in hand, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, finishing up his story about the murder victim found at Lincoln’s feet. The coverage switched back to the newsroom, where the anchor, trying to look properly somber but looking excited instead, gave the “just in” update that the dead young man had been identified as Thomas Malcolm Cronin, age twenty, the grandson of Palmer Cronin, retired chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. The scene switched to a view of Palmer Cronin’s tall iron fence and gate in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where another reporter, her face under an umbrella in the heavy snow, spoke of the victim’s illustrious family.

Suddenly Delsey said clearly, “No, shut up! You can’t be, you can’t!”

He was at her side in an instant, saw horror on her face. “Delsey, wake up, you’ve having a nightmare. Wake up.”

But the nightmare didn’t let her go. She jerked straight up in bed and screamed in his face, “No!”

“Delsey!” He took her shoulders in his hands and shook her hard as her eyes flew open, blind and wild. She was panting, still terrified.

He sat beside her and drew her up in his arms and rubbed her back. “It’s all right, Dels. Hold on to me, you’ll be okay.”

He felt her slowly get herself together. Her arms fell away, and she leaned back in his arms.

“Tell me,” Griffin said.

He saw it was tough for her, and waited. Finally she whispered, “I dreamed I was in a small room—about the size of my bathroom—no windows, only white walls, but they weren’t plain white, Griffin, they were splattered with blood from the men lying dead on the floor. Then they all sat straight up and stared at me and I know they blamed me, and then they started screaming at me, but it wasn’t words, only sounds that didn’t make any sense. There was so much blood, fountains of blood—and it was thick and red and I was naked and I felt the blood splashing on me, streaking down the front of me. The blood was so hot, Griffin, and it was like the blood wanted to burn through me.”

Griffin thought her subconscious had torqued the truth of what had happened to her into a crazy dream, and he wondered whether what her subconscious had dished up might have a kernel of truth lurking in the craziness. He said, “It’s possible when the dead men sat up and looked at you, started screaming at you, that it was your dream trying to tell you that you’d seen or heard something more, Delsey. Get your brain together. Think about this.”

But she couldn’t reason yet, her brain was still frozen. “All those dead men in my dream, Griffin, all of them looked exactly like him, they were all the dead man in my bathtub. Who is the dead man, Griffin?”

“We’ll find out. Now, close your eyes a moment. Think—no, picture—your bathroom in your mind. Do you see or hear anything else?”

She was breathing fast, and he smoothed her hands to calm her. “Yes, that’s right, steady yourself.”

“Yes, now I realize there are two other guys there and one of them is yelling in Spanish, words, curses, I don’t know, but not jumbled sounds like from all the dead guys. Wait, I see one of them, Griffin—only a glimpse, really—a young Hispanic guy. And then something hits my head and I’m gone.”