“Willie, you didn’t!”

“Sure did. Let me tell you something else. Somebody’s lying about when Melincamp arrived in D.C. He told me the first time I talked to him that he flew in the day she was murdered. Baltsa says he came a day before.”

“Why didn’t you bring it up with him?”

“Didn’t think of it until just now. Here’s the appetizers. Looks…uh, good.”

He tried to kiss her good night when he dropped her in front of her apartment building, but she evaded his lips. “Cool it, Willie,” she said.

“Invite me up for a nightcap?”

“Sorry,” she said.

His laugh was more of a growl. “Like I always say, pretty lady, when Willie’s body says it needs something, I always try to accommodate.”

“Well, you’ll just have to accommodate it with someone else. Thanks for picking up the tab for dinner. Enjoy it?”

“I feel healthier already.”

As she watched him drive away, she wondered whether he’d turn the corner and pull into the first fast-food restaurant he could find. She had to smile. She liked Willie Portelain, liked him a lot. He was a good man and a good cop. Not her type, but she’d been having trouble lately finding “her type.”

She dressed for bed and settled in a chair in the living room to watch television. She was restless. She would have liked to find her soul mate and settle into a long-term, loving relationship, maybe get married and have a couple of kids before it was too late. She’d recently met a couple of men who were her type-at least they seemed to be at first blush-but the minute she mentioned that she was a cop, things changed. Out came the lame jokes about a female packing heat (Ho, ho, ho), and dumb questions about what it was like to shoot somebody. Truth was, she’d never even unholstered her weapon since becoming a cop, at least not with the serious intent of shooting someone.

Tired of such ruminations, and hungry, she went to the kitchen, where she smeared peanut butter and jelly on Ritz crackers and poured a glass of milk. Like Willie Portelain was fond of saying, when your body says it needs something, you have to oblige.

TWENTY-THREE

Arthur and Pamela Montgomery, president of the United States and first lady, returned to their living quarters in the White House after having hosted a state dinner for Canada’s prime minister. The first couple enjoyed such events. President Montgomery was a gregarious host who took pleasure in bantering with guests, especially peers from other nations. His wife was equally at ease with a roomful of strangers. Her social secretary was adept at preparing a talking points list for the couple prior to social affairs, complete with a dossier on each guest that included special interests to be woven into conversations. The White House hadn’t had as smooth and erudite a couple in decades, or one as good-looking. Montgomery was movie-star handsome, his wife possessing the sort of quiet, staunch beauty that graced films in the forties and fifties. A formidable pair.

The evening featured Canadian whiskey (a martini for the president) and Canadian wines from its Okanagan Valley, a 2002 Township Chardonnay, and 2001 red Jackson-Triggs Grand Reserve Meritage. A Canadian wine expert was on hand to discuss the merits of the wines: “Because the wines are produced in a cooler climate, they tend to be lighter and fruitier, whereas hotter regions produce less fruity, heavier wines.” Whether that was true or not, the first lady proclaimed them delightful, which was good enough for other wine drinkers at the black-tie affair, who perhaps thought otherwise.

The cocktail hour was to begin at seven. But at six, the president and Prime Minister Bruce Colmes met in a hastily scheduled session in a small room off the family quarters, a meeting arranged at the last minute by their staffs.

“I appreciate you taking the time to meet like this on the spur of the moment,” Montgomery said to his counterpart.

“No inconvenience,” Colmes said. “I’m here at the White House anyway, thanks to your hospitality, Arthur. Let’s just say that this lovely evening has started a little earlier.”

Colmes was a large, rough-hewn man with red cheeks, a shock of red hair, and the beefy, calloused hands of a working man, which he wasn’t except for well-publicized outdoor chores on his ranch when on vacation. He wore his tuxedo like a sack.

These two governmental leaders had forged an easy, comfortable relationship since taking office, and enjoyed a first-name relationship when out of the public eye. Roughly the same age-Colmes was a few years younger than Montgomery but looked older-they shared, but only in private moments like this, a reasoned, albeit cynical view of politics, politicians, political consultants, political commentators, political pundits, political bosses, and everything else to which they’d successfully devoted their adult lives. Their bond, of course, was strengthened by the geographical and cultural boundaries of their two nations.

“The family is good?” Montgomery asked.

“Very much so,” Colmes replied. “Yours?”

“Fine. Our youngest son is giving us a hard time, but that’s just his hormones erupting. He hates living here in the White House, but someday he’ll look back and appreciate the experience, probably by writing a scathing exposé of my administration. I’m sure you’re aware, Bruce, that our press has been making hay out of the tragic murder of your young opera singer from Toronto.”

“I’ve been kept abreast,” Colmes said, his sizable frame filling a crimson armchair. “The spotlight seems to be focused on another of our citizens, also a student at your opera school.”

Montgomery, who consumed less of the matching chair, nodded. “I’ve had some briefings on the case from our Justice Department. One thing we don’t need is for the press to make an international incident out of it.”

Colmes laughed heartily. “They are capable of that, aren’t they? Before we know it, one of your television commentators will find something untoward about our meeting like this before the dinner.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. I do want you to know that our local police are doing everything possible to find the murderer and bring him to justice. I’m told the young lady was quite a promising singer.”

“My understanding, too. You enjoy opera, don’t you, Arthur?”

“Yes, I do, not to the extent Pamela does, but I respond to the spectacle onstage, the incredible voices, the drama of it all. It’s a little like politics, I suppose.”

“I’ve never developed a taste,” Colmes said. “I prefer country-and-western music. At least I like the voters to believe that’s my musical choice. The common man and all.”

“That was the problem with Adlai Stevenson when he twice ran for president,” Montgomery said. “Maybe if he’d played the fiddle, he would have done better.”

“I’m sure he would have,” Colmes said, eliciting a smile from the president, who was well aware that his Canadian counterpart was a lot more sophisticated than he let on.

Montgomery checked his watch. “Let’s get to the meat of this little get-together, Bruce. My intelligence people tell me that this latest al-Qaeda threat has what they’re terming ‘a Canadian connection.’ What the hell is that all about?”

“We’re trying to ascertain the same thing on our end,” Colmes said. “Our people have been in close contact with your intelligence agencies, unlike the way your FBI and CIA function together.”

“We’re getting better at it,” Montgomery said, knowing that the jibe was without barbs. They’d discussed this subject on earlier occasions.

“So I hear. I was briefed on the situation this morning before coming to Washington. It’s the considered opinion of our intelligence that al-Qaeda has decided to forgo large, bigger-than-life strikes, as happened on your nine-eleven, and concentrate on smaller but symbolic targets-namely, people like you, Arthur.”