The Right Jack

"We're sure," Knight said.

She opened her eyes and looked at them gratefully. "Then why hasn't she come?"

"I'm sure she has," Sigrid lied impulsively. "You were probably too groggy to remember."

"Yes, that's it. That must be it."

"Commander," said Alan Knight, "you mentioned Vassily Ivanovich. Could you describe your relationship with him?"

Commander Dixon turned her head on the pillow and smiled faintly at him. "Isn't he a love? He and my dad were friends once. He rememberss o much about Dad that I had forgotten. Hellraisers., both of them."

"There's been some suggestion that perhaps Ivanovich's visit here isn't quite as i

Her eyes widened. " Who suggested?"

"After all, ma'am, with your job and security clearance-"

"I forgot you were Intelligence," she said and her bell-toned voice held the first hint of amusement. "Always looking for spies under the bed. Forget it, Lieutenant. I don't talk about my job to anybody, not even to long-lost friends of my father. Anyhow, Vassily's never asked. I don't think he would. Even if they told him to. I know it's hard to understand, but he really does love Americans. My father pulled him out of the water himself. He'd never do anything to hurt my father's child."

The words had tired her, but she seemed compelled to make him understand. "Some things go beyond ideology, Lieutenant."

"But, ma-am-"

"No buts, Lieutenant," she said softly.

He let it drop for the moment andh elped Sigrid lead her through what she had observed Friday night. It added nothing to what they already knew. No, she had noticed no one hovering around Table 5 before they were asked to take their places; no, she hadn't paid any attention to the cribbage board at the next place. It was the first time that she'd realized that Zachary Wolferman was one of the dead men and her eyes misted.

"What about his cousin? Mr.-Froman?"

"Froelick," Sigrid told her. "He wasn't hurt."

"That's good."

Her attention drifted towards the packages they had placed on her bed table. "Are those for me?"

The things they had chosen somehow seemed frivolous and incongruous now.

"We didn't know-" Knight began awkwardly, then glanced at Sigrid for help.

"Are there any books you'd like?" asked Sigrid. "Can we bring you anything from your apartment?"

"Thank you both, but I'm sure Molly will do it."

She smiled at the back scratcher and kaleidoscope and seemed charmed by Sigrid's cherry tree inside the glass dome. "I was stationed in Japan for two springs," she told them, mesmerized by the tiny pink petals that swirled around the tree. " Washington, too, of course."

But the gift wrap and tape on the small box defeated her. "I can't." she said wretchedly. "It takes two hands."

She lifted her left hand. "I can't write with this."

Her eyes focused on her slender fingers, at the chipped red enamel; and she gave a strangled sob. "I can't even take off my own nail polish."

Afterward, Alan Knight was to insist that somebody must have rubbed a magic lantern and that the girl who suddenly appeared in the doorway with a small valise and an enormous bouquet of asters and fall chrysanthemums must have been a genie.

"Commander Dixon?" she chirped. "Hi! A Mr. Haines Froelick sent me. I'm from Elizabeth Arden. Mr. Froelick thought a nice facial might cheer you up.

I can do your nails, too, if you want."

"Now there's a man who clearly knows a thing or two about hospital presents," said Knight, as he and Sigrid waited for the elevator to take them down.

26

AS they hurtled downtown in the gray Navy station wagon assigned to Lieutenant Knight, Sigrid found herself increasingly exasperated. "That's hardly a logical decision," she told him.

"I don't care," Knight replied. "Anyhow, it may not be logical, but it's certainly reasonable."

He peered out at a passing street sign. "Weren't we supposed to turn there, Schmitty?"

"No, sir," said their patient helmsman as he navigated the tricky waters of Greenwich Village.

"You can't dismiss Froelick as a suspect simply because he did something nice for Commander Dixon," Sigrid said.

"The hell I can't! If you can take Molly Baldwin off your list because she's too immature, I can take Haines Froelick off mine because he's thoughtful. Somebody empathic enough to send over a beautician is too damn decent to bomb a roomful of people." Pleased with his circuitous logic. Knight gri

Unconvinced, Sigrid leaned back, shaking her head. "How long did you say you've been doing intelligence work?"

"This the right place, ma'am?" asked Petty Officer Schmitt, drawing up before the gracious Greenwich Village brown-stone that housed the Sutton apartment.

"This is it."

Before leaving the hospital, Sigrid had checked in with headquarters and learned that Nauman had left a message that Val Sutton was back and wanted to see her.

When Sigrid rang the doorbell on the second floor, Nauman himself answered.

"That was quick." His welcoming smile dimmed as Alan Knight loomed up behind her.

"Sir," said Knight, touching his hat in a half salute.

"I see you're still babysitting," Nauman muttered in Sigrid's ear.

A bearded graduate student with a giggling Sutton tot on each shoulder passed them in the hall headed for the kitchen. The children had become somewhat jaded by the presence of so many people in the last few days and paid no attention to the new arrivals.

In the study, Val Sutton was leafing through a stack of sympathy cards. She wore a loose black sweater dress belted with a gold chain, and a pot of vivid yellow chrysanthemums brightened the cold hearth.

"I don't mind 'Our thoughts are with you' or 'in your time of sorrow,' but I'll be damned if I'll look at 'God has a purpose!'" she said, kiting the offensive message towards the fireplace. "How can they drivel that disgusting pap? Laying John's murder on God!"

A pudgy rumpled man in baggy corduroy pants and even baggier rust-color sweater rescued the cards from the sooty hearth. "A little more charity, Val," he admonished mildly. "They mean well."

"When the world has reduced itself to a polluted ball of rubble, the last man will probably erect a stone that reads 'They meant well,'" she replied; yet the shadow of a sardonic smile softened the bitter words and her smile widened as

Nauman appeared in the doorway with Sigrid and Alan Knight.

She greeted Sigrid warmly and was introduced to Knight, but Sigrid immediately noticed how tired she looked. Something about her face had hardened. She was still exotic, still resembled a sleek expensive cat, but something was gone, thought Sigrid. Youth? No, not youth exactly, nor confidence either… Vulnerability, she decided. Val Sutton was in the process of growing a chip-proof shell and unless something intervened, it would slowly harden around her like the chrysalis of one of Jill Gill's butterflies, smooth and beautiful and utterly impervious to rain or sun.

And the man knew it, she thought, extending her hand to the one Val was introducing as Sam Naismith.

"We met by phone Saturday night," Sigrid reminded them.

"Sam's going to act as John's literary executor," said Val. "Finish John's book."

"Won't that be rather difficult?"

"Val's rounding up all his notes for me," said Naismith, with a gentle smile. "And don't forget that John and I roomedt ogether at McClellan, so we shared a lot of the same experiences."

"Sam spent the weekend phoning all over the country to locate Tris Yorke," said Val, motioning them to take chairs.

"I'm sorry you went to that trouble," said Sigrid. "We learned this morning that Ted Flythe's definitely not Fred Hamilton. The fingerprints are completely different."